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We 


don't like Disney World. No, no. Let us rephrase that. We don't like the above-ground 

portions of Disney with those well-manicured pathways, perfectly 
maintained lawns and Technicolor buildings against a crisp, 
clear-blue sky. 

Sure, Space Mountain can be exhilarating and the Haunted 
House is always a good time, but then what have you got? 
Rather, we prefer the side of Disney World we were once 
lucky enough to glimpse: the normally off-limits "back- 
stage area." 


WHY THE ’NET IS 


NOT LIKE CB RADIOS, TV 


OR DISNEY WORLD 


II decoded 


In that underbelly of Fantasyland, we saw Goofy walk 
around without his oversized head, smoking a cigarette. 
Mammoth industrial cooling pipes wound like snakes to 
destinations marked only by generic nameplates on 
whitewashed doors. The normally pleasant workers, 
crowded around a vending machine, 
scowled and complained about park poli- 
tics. A young woman wearing a Metallica 
T-shirt and ripped jeans carrying a prim, 
lacy costume over her arms was getting a 
firm talking-to by a stern-looking supervi- 
sor. All of it fascinated us. We realized this was how 
the park really worked, on grit and agitation. 

By far, that undiscovered country known as the 
underground always seems more interesting. 
Sometimes, simply due to its uninten- 
tional, unmapped landscape designed 
with only function, not aesthetics, in 
mind. That's why we've decided to take 
you, the reader, through the Internet via 
this less-trafficked pathway. To gain a 
different perspective, you have to look at something 
from another view. 

When you think about it, no one really sees the 
exterior of the Internet anyway. Sitting bleary-eyed 
in the dim glow of our screens, we feel like we're 
simply wandering, glimpsing the programmed 
innards of one computer before bouncing 
onto another. What would all these small 
parts put together look like if they were 
assembled? (see diagram at right) We like 
that the Internet seems a shapeless, shift- 
ing perpetual work in progress. 

This ambiguity may be one reason 
the mainstream media has not quite figured out 
how to report on the Internet yet. Nor has Congress 
fully grasped how to respond. As usual, when either of 
those groups don't quite grasp something, yet view it as 


potentially dangerous, that entity is sensationalized and 
branded as "bad" before being properly investigated. We 
think we understand the way the world of the Internet 
functions, so we can be a little more responsible. One 
thing you'll never read in Internet Underground will 

be scare stories about children and 
cyberporn. You will read about 
how a sex bulletin board service 
compares to a real call girl. Now 
that's worth investigating. 

Many people compare the 
Internet to the embarrassing 
Citizens Band trend of the 
'70s. With regret, we remem- 
ber such grating movies as 
Convoy and Smokey and the 
Bandit or TV shows such as 
the loathsome Dukes of 
Hazard. Everyone assumed 
a handle (even two of the 
IU staffers who were in 
elementary school during the craze). 

People drove around, talking to oth- ^ 
ers on the road, amazed by their 
ability to tap into a collective voice 
* ""simply by depressing a 
button. But that was all 
we got: voices drifting in 
fields of static, offering 
messages encoded in jar- 
gon. Rarely could you 
have actual conversations; after all, 
everyone else was listening. 

CB radio died for many reasons, 
but mostly because those small 
boxes were designed with 
only one purpose, allowing 
only for two-way audio 
communication. So after 
awhile, when the novelty 
wore off, most folks took 
down those odd, hefty 
antennas. Later, we as a 
nation shuddered at the thought that 
we were promoting the trucking cul- 
ture, defined simply by guys who drove 
trucks, ate in diners and aged rapidly 
due to sleep deprivation. 

People also compare the 
Web to television. But we ask, 
when you admire someone's TV 
show, can you then get in touch 
with them almost immediately? 



note from the Underground 


On the 'net, however, you can just 
hit the "e-mail me'' hyperlink. You 
can converse or make friends in 
public or private. One of our goals is 
to get into the minds of those who cre- 
ate this intimate space. Without people 



jT 


Internet Underground 



figure 1: The Internet (artist's rendition) 




to create Web pages, oversee newsgroups or maintain mailing 
lists, the Internet would be empty bandwidth. 

That's why one of our first missions was to seek out the 
"Arbiters of Cool," those judges who help direct traffic to sites 
they deem good, bad or just plain useless. We learned Cool 
Site of the Day was predicted to last less than 
a month; now the site boasts 40,000 hits a 
day. Speaking of hits, we take on that issue 
too, examining just what makes up a "hit" 
and how some companies plan to police 
those claims in Netline, our news section. 

In our cover story, John Wesley 
Hardin takes a look at the trouble with 
security on the 'net, prompted by the 
recent hacker inroads to the supposedly secure 
Netscape browser. He also examines the future 
generations of browsers, including Netscape 
Gold, VRML, Hot Java and Blackbird, to offer a 
glimpse of what the Web will look like 
a year from now. 

Each month, we plan to take a clos- 
er look at specific pages on the Web, 
talk to their creators and learn a little 
bit more than what's offered in the 
hyperlinks. This month, we learn how one 
man fooled a nation with a phony crime- 
scene investigation. Showing the dexterity of 
the same medium, we also profile pages from 
Twinkie experimenters and an 
Oklahoma City retiree who worked 
her fascination with Marilyn Monroe 
into a haunting narrative. 

Mirksy, of Worst of the Web 
fame, joins our staff as a monthly 
columnist. In this issue, Mirsky sets 
out to find celebrities but falls a little short of 
his goal (you can find out more about Mirsky 
in our Arbiters of Cool section). Justin Hall, 
of the infamous Justin's Links to the 
Underground, also joins us to write 
our first 403 Forbidden column, named 
after the standard response one gets 
after trying to poke a browser where it 
doesn't belong. Hall, who helped launch 
HotWired, explains why online sex 
needs to be put into the proper context. 

We start each month's issue with the 
Net Top 10. This does not necessarily pin- 
point the 10 absolute best Web sites (as if 
anyone could ever quantify such a thing), 
but rather sites unearthed by the IU staff that 
we feel everyone really ought to check out. 

Weird on the Web features our picks for odd 
and unusual destinations. This month, we ended 
up finding such oddities as the Nipple Server and 


a Shaman who offers spiritual heal- 
ing over the phone lines. 

In the '60s, one phrase rang out: 
"Tune in, turn on and drop out." In 
the '90s, a similar one may be 
coined as well. "Sign on, log in and 
drop out." The drop out part refers 
to the hours spent in front 
of a computer, putting off 
that term paper, avoiding 
that laundry or actually 
talking to live people. Other 
magazines keep trying to 
sell you on the importance of the 
'net to your daily life. Plan your 
trips! Check on your stocks! We 
believe firmly that the Internet has 
value, no question. But 
sometimes, it's just a time 
suck, an addictive trap that 
hard to escape. No one 
knows that better than an 
IU staff member. We admit, 
there's no valid reason to spend 
time reading the results of two col- 
lege guys' experiments designed to 
learn whether Twinkies have intelli- 
gence. Well, there's one: It's fun and 
we like fun. 

So we invite you to 
the Underground, including 
those of you who are new 
to the 'net. All kindred 
spirits are welcome here. 
You don't even need to learn a 
secret handshake. Just sign on, 
log in and d 

r 

/OUt.. 


o 




December ’95 



INTERNET UNDERGROUND 

IUa>mcs.net or the_undergrounda>msn.com 

DECEMBER 1995. VOLUME ONE. ISSUE ONE 

A Sendai Media Publication 

PUBLISHER 
Steve Harris 

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR 
Joe Funk 

SENIOR EDITOR 
Kathleen Flinn 
ka tflinna>mcs. net 

MANAGING EDITOR 
Alex S. Gordon 
asg«>mcs.net 

NEWS EDITOR 
Justin Ware 
jlwaresmcs.net 

ASSISTANT EDITOR 
Sarah K. Ellerman 
sked>mcs.net 

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS 
Greg Grabianski, Justin Hall, John Wesley Hardin, 

Arnie Katz, Mirsky, Garrick Schmitt, Joyce Worley 

ART 8 DESIGN DIRECTOR 
Tom DeMay Jr. 

ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR 
Jane Moertl 

PRODUCTION 

John Born, Production Coordinater 
Dave McCracken, Production Manager 
Jennifer Whitesides, Managing Copy Editor 
Gayle Schneider, Jennifer McGeary, Copy Editors 

Mike Darling, Ad Coordinator 

CUSTOMERS SERVICE 
(708) 268-2498 (M-F, 7 a.m.-7 p.m. CST) 

ADVERTISING 
Eisenberg Communications Group, Inc. 

Woodland Hills, CA (818) 712-9400 

ecga>eisenberg. com 
Jeffrey Eisenberg, President and National 

Advertising Director 
Brian Olshever, National Adverttsing manager 

Jon Yoffie, V.P. Sales Manager 
Suzanne Farrell, Ad Coordination Manager 

NY Office: (212) 984-0730 
Michele Citrin, Account Executive 

SENDAI MEDIA GROUP 
Steve Harris, President 
Mike Riley, Executive Vice President 
Mark Kaminky, Vice President/General Counsel 

Joe Funk, Editorial Director 
Marc Camron, Director of Operations 
Lambert Smith, V.P. /Finance 
Val Russell, Circulation Director 
Jack Copley, Circulation Manager 
Kim Schmidt, Promotions Coordinator 
Kate Rogers, Publicity Manager 
Harvey Wasserman, Newsstand Director 
Peter Walsh, Newsstand Manager 
John Stanford, Manufacturing Director 

DISTRIBUTED BY: 

Warner Publishing Services, Inc. 
Internet Underground (ISSN*io84-48o5) is published monthly by Sendai Media Group Inc., 
1920 Highland Ave., Suite 222, Lombard, IL 60148. Third Class Postage paid Nashville, TN. 
Subscription rates for U.S. $23.95, Canada and Mexico $35.95 and all others $124. Single issue 
rates $4.99. Postmaster: Send address changes to Internet Underground, P. 0 . Box 1502, 

Lombard, IL 60148. Reach us at IUd>mcs.net 







Plunge into this surrealistic 3D 
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mind expanding challenges. 


to one shocking conclusion! 
For Macintosh and PC Windows® 


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VOLUME i ISSUE i 


DECEMBER '95 




™ THE CRIME 
•U SCENE CASE 

by Kathleen Flinn 

She was a young woman, brutally 
murdered. Or was she? Our look at 
the Web’s most grisly crime. 


PROJECT 

t.w.i.n.k.i.e. 

by Alex Gordon 


78 


COVER story: 

AN INSECURE INTERNET 

by John Wesley Hardin 

An investigation into the Netscape break-ins 
reveals greater security problems than ’net 
businesses want to admit. Plus: Confessions 
of a Netscape hacker and a look at the brave 

new world of Web browsers. 


ARBITERS OF COOL 

by I U Staff 

Through judgment of good and 
bad, creators of sites like Cool Site 
of the Day direct much of the 
Web’s traffic. Who are they, 
and are they cool? 


DIGITAL IN K 

by Jeff Teal 

The hottest type isn’t necessarily 
the best in Ilfs exploration of 

digital publishing. 


Two college students’ experiments 
with famous sponge cakes have earned 

them worldwide acclaim. 


M ALIEN AUTOPSY: 
E.T. OR F/X? 

by Arizona Clark 


Is the Roswell footage a hoax? Find 
out the ’net consensus. 





COVER ART BY RICH BORGE 


4 hyperlink 

> why the ‘net is not like TV, C.B. 
Radios or Disney World 


j() e-mail! 


12 net top 10 

14 alt.eulture.wateh 



18 


12 



netline 

In the news this month: the 
NETwork, cheap long-distance 
calls and law school on the ’net 

25 1U insider 

The ’net goes tabloid in the U.K. 

28 weird on the web 

nnweb pages we’re 
Jl glad we can’t find 

Order your radioactive Barbie now! 

87 on the net with... 
Rodney Dangerfield 

Rodney on the Web? You bet. 

88 home page spotlight 

The Marilyn Pages. 

80 reviews, new for the ’net 


83 s y so P 

Whv oavi 


y paving the Earth is our destiny 


Q4 flamethrower 

Boors on the Web 

8b brainpan 

Beating the hurry up and wait 

87 403 forbidden 

Confronting our prudish culture 

88 @ large 

Mirsky’s tips to becoming a Web celebrity 




> Nobody Listens to you 


You're feeling shackled. 

If only you could set your 
thoughts 

f 


e 


e 


> * So write us. 
We'll listen 
Why not? 
We don't have any letters. 


...... 



reach us 

Internet Underground. 




e-mail: IU@mcs.net 



Internet Underground 


1920 Highland Avenue 
Lombard, IL 60148 


the_underground@msn.com 




FOR THE INTERNET. ITS WORTH 







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■ ' 






mm 








The Marilyn Pages 

http://ionet.net: 

8 0/ ^jeUenc/marilyn.html 

This site offers a haunting tribute to the sad, 
troubled life of Marilyn Monroe. With gener- 
ous text and excellent images of the ethereal 
star in an understated design, creator Ellen 
Cotton paints a vivid portrait of the lonely 
icon. Her site is a refreshing change from 
those that nearly shock a reader with alarm- 
ing backgrounds or lack any organization. 
These pages link to Cotton's home page, a 
well-designed launch pad for eclectic, well- 
executed pages. See Spotlight, page 69. 




The Atomic Bomb 
|F WWW Museum 

■ http://www.csi.ad.jp/ 

ABOMB/index.html 

This Japan-based site clearly and respectfully 
offers an interesting look at the bombing of 
Nagasaki and Hiroshima with haunting images 
and stories of survivors. The site also offers a 
"walking tour" of Peace Park and monu- 
ments in both cities. The text breaks into 
easy-to-read narratives to weave together 
a complete story of two cities thrown forev- 
er into the limelight of history. Although cre- 
ated by Japanese authors, the site does not 
place any blame on the United States for its 
actions. 


Alien Autopsy Face Off 

5 How to Make an Alien 

http://www.dnenet. 
net/trudang 

Rumors about UFOs and the 
infamous Roswell alien autop- 
sy abound on the Internet. At 
this exhaustive site compiled 
by special effects epxert Trey 
Stokes, you can get the low- 
down on the videotape aired last 
fall by Fox that supposedly documents an 
actual autopsy of an alien recovered in the 
1947 crash of a flying saucer in the desert 
outside Roswell, N.M. Stokes points out inconsistencies and 
offers explainations on how the whole thing could be hoaxed 
through his five-part "How to Make an Alien" instructions. The 
site offers links to find out what other experts think of the 
footage. Explicit photos, not for the queasy. 




The Evan Strikes Back 

http://www.cs.utk.edu: 

8 O/^ereynold/cgi-bin/sw.html 

Immediately confirming his good taste by centering his trilogy 
page on The Empire Strikes Back, Evan Reynolds' homage to 

Star Wars marks an impressive labor of 

4 love with a sardonic edge. His Cut 

Scenes page even throws in a humor- 
ous list of fake edits, including "The 
Dinner Scene on Bespin where Lando 
pulls out the Colt 45" and "The 
Outrageous Ernie and Bert cantina 
shot." Don't miss Dinner with Darth— 
where you get to see David Prowse 
unmasked. 


Internet Underground 




Two-Minute Warning 

http://www.dtd.com/tmw/tmw.cgi 

I This pleasant diversion from Team NFL lets 
j/ football fans win stuff like mini-helmets signed 
by Barry Sanders (who, the game says, will lead the 
Lions to the Super Bowl, showing us that trivia buffs 


MINUTE WARNING 


aren't necessarily good prognosticators). Most fans have no 
real shot at winning, since the game pretty much requires 
eight Hail Marys for touchdowns, eight two-point 

conversions and seven kick-off recoveries 
in two minutes to even qualify. But the 
game itself is enough to justify an after- 
noon of procrastination. 





Encyclopedia Brady 

http://www.teleportcoiri/ 
m p —btacker/bradys.htm 

M hltp://www.primenetxom/~dbrady 

These closely linked sites pay an amazing, 
fact-filled salute to America's favorite unrealis- 
tic family of the 1970s. Included 
in the impressive Unofficial Home 
Page are the blueprints of the famous 
house (that show it's architecturally 
impossible), sound clips and a wacky 
free screen saver. The encyclopedia, 
created by Los Angeles Times writer 
David Brady, offers a shelf filled with tidbits about every 
aspect of Brady life. 


Crunch, The Cereal 
Box Hall of Fame 

http://www.ice.net/~crunch/ 

Cruising the Web over a bowl of Froot Loops? Be sure to 

check out the Crunch Cereal Box 
Collection. The site's highlight is 
a gallery of vintage cereal boxes 
ranging from classics like the 
cavity-inducing Quisp to flashes- 
in-the-bowl like Sir Grapefellow 
that made the milk taste like a 
weak Merlot. Plus there's a con- 
nection to the Cereal FAQ where 
you can trace the history of the 
Lucky Charms marshmallows. 



Internet Underground 
Music Archives 

http://www.iuma.com 

No, we're not related to this site. Let's get that straight 
right now. They just have good taste in name selection. 
But this, one of the most heavily visited spots on the 
Web, is worth putting on your hot list as it offers a clear- 
inghouse for alternative bands and independent labels. 
This impressive site provides exposure to bands that 
would normally have a difficult time gaining a national 
audience, much less access to an international arena. 


NUKE 

m ■ http://www.nukexom/index.htinl 

All right, allow us a moment for self-indul- 
Y gence as we name the Web site dedicated to 
computer games, video games, movies, TVs, comic 
f books and all other kinds of nifty stuff in a user-friend- 
f ly format. From Sendai Media Group, the parent compa- 
ny of Internet Underground, this is a good place to spend 
a time. We'd say that even if we weren't so biased, we swear. 




The Salvador Dali Museum 

http://www.highwayone.com/dali 

We highlight this site for its sense of fun. As the front 
page loads, you're warned, "Please, don't click on 
the flies or clocks." Of course, we did, and were sub- 
jected to shameless sales pitches for the St. 
Petersburg, Fla., museum's 
mousepad and other items. 

At $17.06, we passed on the 
pad, but we did download 
the free Dali wallpaper 
(comes in three styles) and 
took the surrealism quiz. 

This site does well repro- 
ducing the few images it 
does offer (one of which is amazingly huge in real 
life), and the site offers loads of information about 
the innovative artist and his work. We're hoping 
they offer a free screen saver next.Q 






eulture.wateh 




. A BBS vs. an actual CALL GIRL , 


By Greg Grabianski 

It’s late at night. You’re homy and in need of 
some ’’special companionship.” What do you do? Call 
up an escort service? ”Nah,” you think, ’’too much 
trouble.” Instead, you decide to get some action by 
logging onto a sexy, adults-only Bulletin Board Service 
(BBS). Well, my foul little friend, are you in for a sur- 
prise. Which is easier? Take a look at our comparison. 

A BBS takes about 48 hours for your application to be 
scrutinized and accepted for their legal protection. 

A CALL GIRL takes about 48 minutes to get to your 
place, unless she stops to buy protection. 

A BBS may call you back to verify if you are a 
man or a woman. 

A CALL GIRL may call you back to verify if you 
WANT a man or a woman. 


BBS: If you’re lucky, you’ll need to furnish just 
two IDs to prove that you’re 18years old. 

CALL GIRL: If you’re lucky, you might get one 
that’s 1 8years old. 

BBS: Some of them will screw you with their 
$50 fee before you get on and discuss. 

CALL GIRL: Some of them will discuss their 
$50 fee before they get on and screw you. 

A BBS will help you if you’re having trouble 
downloading. 

A CALL GIRL will help you if you’re having 
trouble uploading. 

BBS: It’s quite possible that the woman writing 
about giving you oral sex is, in fact, a man. 
CALL GIRL: It’s quite possible that the woman 
giving you oral sex, is in fact, a man. 



BARGAIN BIN 


Numbers on the ‘Net 


There’s lots of stuff to 
buy on the Internet, but 
each month, well bring you 
a little extra-special bar- 
gain-something you would- 
n’t think could be retailed in 
the ether. This month’s 
selections: 


A comparative look at random Wpbcrawlpf 
searches on the following words: 


Mainstream - 593 
Christian - 3,375 
Jesus - 1,113 
Good - 0 
Light - 6,209 


Underground - 2,120 
Pagan - 223 
Satan - 316 
Evil - 955 
Darkness - 537 



Sani-Pottie Portable and Pit-Type Toilets 

http://webmart.freedom.net/ 
belson/ptoilets.html 

Weather-resistant Sani-potties 
are great for any outdoor setting. 

Tough polyethyne construction 
throughout will not rot or 
corrode and never needs 
painting. 190 lbs. $633.50. 

From Belson 
Manufacturing Co. 

Make it an extra-spe- 
cial portable potty with a 
seat from Jammin’ Johns 
at http://www.iglou.com/ 
Jammin-Johns/. Their 
seats combine the comfort 
of a finely crafted bathroom 
accoutrement with the leg- 
endary looks of your favorite 
guitar. Retail: $99. Several styles 
from which to choose. 


Netspeak 

U Most people have only seen the 
comedic side of me. But really, there’s 

much more. I just haven’t revealed it yet. 

It takes time. I’ll 
get my ‘Pvlp Fiction.' ” 

-Pauly Shore on America Online 

“I won’t play a character who shoots oris 

shot at, who's raped or stalked or battered. 
That leaves me with a limited number 

of roles. I keep waiting. 

-Oprah Winfrey on AOL 

u We don't feel that way. 

IF you had the intent to kill somebody, 
you're the OTIC with the problem.” 

-Directors Albert and Allen Hughes, 

DISCUSSING WHETHER FILM VIOLENCE 

causes real violence, on AOL 







|||||||Pl 


Wotf H< 


A 


IATTLETECH 

C A Jy 
^/VE^ 




EXPLODING NOW ON WINDOWS 95 


AcliyisioN 


BONUS 


U D 



thec 




Activision is a registered trademark of Activision. Inc. © 1995 Activision. Inc. All rights reserved. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. 
MechWarrior, BattleTech and ’Mech are registered trademarks and NetMech is a trademark of FASA CORPORATION. © 1995 FASA CORPORATION. 













eulture.watch 



Degrees of Separation: 


Politics and porn virtual neighbors? 


WITH FAMILY VALUES a top issue for all the presidential 

candidates, I U decided to see just how far removed our cultural 
watchdogs are from cyberporn, the enemy du jour of a supposedly 
wholesome society. Think you can do it faster? Give it a shot, then 
send in your results to IU@mcs.net. The winner will appear 
in next month’s Internet Underground. But remember, no search 
engines; make your connections via hyperlinks only. A couple of 
hints: the Christian Coalition’s site is harder to escape than Alcatraz, 
so you’ll have to be creative (we had to sneak out, 
ironically, through Alan Keyes). HAPPY HUNTING! 



Lamar Alexander 
http://www.gramm96.org 


World Wide Wank Ftp://ftp. 
netcom.com/ pub/ ea/ earl/World 
WideWank.html 



SIX LINKS! 


Phil Gramm 

http://www.gramm96.org 



Live Nude Video 
Teleconferencing 
http://www.virtualdreams.com 


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The White House 
http://www.whitehouse.gov 



wav ornty »in 


Way Dirty Pix 
http :/ / www. f ata ss. c o m 


And the Winner is! 


Christian Coalition 


Congressional Scorecard 
Search Engine 
Christian American 
Special Events 
Other Sites of Interest 

Feedback 


Welcome 

Speeches & Position Papers 
Legislative Affairs 
Education 
Press Releases 



Religious Rights Watch 
Contact Congress 


The Christian Coalition 
http://cc.org/cc/welcome/ 




5 


J 


J 



Bianca’s Smut Shack 
http://bianca.com/shack 


Internet Underground 


Http://TV.com 

Selected references to the ’net on that 

OTHER MEDIUM 

Hmmm.Jnternet... 

Smilies to the producers of The Simpsons for 
quality ’net usage. 

On Sept. 24, upon hearing about a new 
film featuring his favorite superhero, Bart 
anxiously asked, "Who’s going to play 
Radioactive Man?" 

"I will tell you in exactly seven minutes," 
the owner of the comics and cards store 
haughtily replied. He waddled back to his 
computer (running UNIX, if you looked close- 
ly) and said, "Okay, here we are... 
alt.nerd. obsessive." He typed, "Need to 
know star RM pic." 

Several geeks around the country received 
his message. One guy strapped on a pair of 
Spock ears. Another 
had a model of the 
Enterprise atop his 
computer. Finally, a 
guy crouched under a 
table in Hollywood 
received the mes- 
sage. Whipping out a 
stethoscope, he held 
it to the bottom of the 
table as the directors discussed casting the 
film. Thus, our heroes learned of Dirk 
Richter’s involvement in the film. 

JUST LIKE REAL LIFE, ELI? 

DUBIOUS DUPLICITY 

Meanwhile, FLAMES to the producers of the 
NBC sitcom Hope and Gloria. 

An early season show depicted protagonist 
Hope getting herself into all kinds of trouble for 
misdirecting an e-mail intended for an object of 
affection. SUPPOSEDLY, that wacky Hope hit 
one button and sent the message out to her 
"global list." IMPROBABLY, that list included 
everyone at the fictional TV station at which 
she’s employed— and Ted Turner! Why a slack 
associate producer would have the CEO of a 
parent company on her personal list is a mys- 
tery to us, but two other elements troubled us 
more. For one, Hope sent the message from her 
laptop WITHOUT BEING HOOKED UP to a 

phone jack for her modem! We did not observe 
any wireless modem attached to her gear. 

Then she coaxed the geeky systems administra- 
tors to help her with some crisis management 
by breaking into other employees’ mailboxes 
and taking the message out. How a sysop at an 
affiliate would have access to Turner’s personal 
mail queue seems questionable. BUT MORE 
TROUBLING: Do the show’s creators support 
such blatant acts of disrespect to allow break- 
ins to personal mailboxes simply to avoid a little 
embarrassment to some hapless co-worker? 













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Multilingual Version 

Supporting: English, French and Italian, 
(other languages are also available). 






The Most Comprehensive Directory 
of Internet Sites Ever Produced 


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Microforum's user-friendly interface allows you to search 
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one-step connection to your browser. 


A great new feature for Internet Connection' '96 is 
"Quick Access" which acts as an Internet "telephone book" 
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ALL TRADEMARKS AND REGISTERED TRADEMARKS ARE OF THEIR RESPECTIVE COMPANIES. MADE IN CANADA 












INTELLIGENCE REPORT: NEWS FROM THE UNDERGROUND 


Number of subscribers 


to Internet-access 


gateway service 


providers (est): 


1,500,000 


Number of subscribers 


to America Online (est): 


3,400,000 


Microsoft's net income 


for the third quarter: 


$499,000,000 


Netscape's net income 


for the third quarter: 


$1,400,000 


5 


Internet Underground 



From TV to 
the WWW 

Giving networking a 
whole new meaning 

With so many comparisons of the Web 
to television, it was only a matter of 
time before TV producers moved in to 
claim a piece of the action on the 'net. 

As of press time, one of the first 
line-ups of Web programs was expected 
to kick off Nov. 20 from the NETwork at 
http://www.thenetwork.net, an online 
production company headed by two TV 
veterans. 

"This isn't Wayne's World," says 
NETwork co-owner William D'Angelo. 
"We're not two college guys sitting in 
our basement putting out some site." 

Far from it. D'Angelo has a 
lengthy TV resume that includes stints as 
executive producer on more than two 
dozen projects, including Pee Wee's 
Playhouse, Webster, Love American 
Style and Top Cops. 

His partner, Dean Valias, is an 
Emmy-nominated, 20-year veteran of 
the news business who founded CNN's 
Middle East Bureau. They formed the 


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NETwork with the hopes of becoming the NBC of the 
bandwidth, but they are not alone— several companies, 
both large and small, are scrambling to put programming 
on the 'net. One example is Songline Productions, a joint 
effort of Global Network Navigator and American Online. 
Songline expects to launch Ferndale , an interactive 




comedic soap opera, starting sometime in January. 

Initial programming on the NETwork has been 
designed to attract 18- to 49-year-old men no longer sati- 
ated by sitcoms, D'Angelo says. With that demographic in 
mind, the bulk of the initial six programs focuses more on 
seedier scenarios and criminals than typical sitcom fare. 

Whodunit? will be a weekly series similar to a stan- 
dard TV show, except that the ending will not be re- 
vealed or neatly tied up. Instead, viewers will be able to 
mull over all the supporting material for the story to fig- 
ure out the solution before the answer is revealed the 
following week. 

Another crime-related program, The Murder Book, 
doesn't rely on story writers, but instead allows viewers 
to go through evidence from true, unsolved murders 
(similar to the crime scene profiled on page 70). Allowing 
such extensive public documentation on ongoing investi- 
gations will be a first, D'Angelo says. Each episode will 
guide viewers through an original investigation, led by 
the chief detective on the case. Ironically, the much- 
maligned Los Angeles Police Department will inaugu- 
rate the program by providing the details of the first 
two murder cases. 

Also planned for the NETwork is the magazine 
CoverStory, billed as a cross between People and The 
New Yorker, with promises of writing by high-profile 
writers such as Pete Hamill and Jimmy Breslin. A graph- 
ic novel from Peanuts animator Bill Melendez will 
depict the battle of an evil casino vs. a good one in Las 
Vegas Confidential. The animated weekly series set in 
the futuristic Sin City is expected to run 30 to 40 new 
pages each week. 

In developing the weekly shows for the 'net the 
trio learned that they had to do something not com- 
monly done in TV: Consider the brains of the viewer. 

"In this venue, we can't do a lot of car chases or 
police shootings,'' says Whodunit ? producer Joe 
Hamill. "We have to rely on intelligence, not action." 

-Kathleen Flinn 






How to surf the ’net 
for fun and profit 

From wineries to the NFL f companies scattered through- 
out cyberspace are increasingly turning to promotional 
giveaways to draw users to their sites, scooping up pre- 
cious advertising dollars and repeat hits in the process, 
'net surfers can find numerous ways to win prizes on the 
Web, or, in the case of one company, even 


opportunity to win smaller weekly prizes as 
well as a final grand prize of $20,000. The 
weekly takes vary from the worthwhile (a 
trip to Australia) to the lame (a CompuServe 
umbrella), with the game itself requiring lit- 
tle beyond an ability to hyperlink. But the 
variety and value of prizes, totaling $1 mil- 
lion in giveaways, should provide more than 


through e-mail. ii 

Yoyodyne Entertainment, the creators 
of the popular Prodigy gameshow GUTS, 
will be giving away the grand prize for their 
first Internet-wide contest, The Classic Car 
Challenge, in December. Seth Godin, 

Yoyodyne’s president, chose e-mail for their current slate 
of contests for two reasons: to keep the contests simple 
and to make the trivia-based competitions platform inde- 
pendent, meaning that players can participate for free 



regardless of computer type or online affiliation. A mil- 
lion users are expected to participate by the end of the 
year for a shot at a new Mazda Miata. The Classic Car 
Challenge is only the first step— following the success of 
their initial launches, Yoyodyne prepared an entire fall 
and winter lineup, all backed by commercial sponsors. 
"The audience is huge for e-mail and the simpler these 
games are, the more they sell," Grodin says. 

If the odds of winning one Mazda Miata seem a bit 
steep, CompuServe’s Treasure Flunt offers trivia buffs an 


I'll take ONLINE contests 

for $200, ALEX..." 


enough reason for any surfer to participate. 

On a slightly smaller yet more elegant 
scale is the Dream Cruise Sweepstakes, a 
combined effort of Sterling Vineyards, 
Mumm Cuvee Napa and Monterey 
Vineyards. Purchase of wine may not be 
necessary to win, but it certainly makes it 
easier; entry into the contest is automat- 
ic with a purchase or with membership 
in a sampling club, other interested 
parties must send a postcard via 
snail mail in order to partici- 
pate. Tantalizing players with 
a $2,500 trip on Princess Cruise 
Lines, the sweepstakes entirely 
forsakes the skill elements found 
in the trivia contests and relies 
instead on the luck of the draw. 

Once again, the odds are a bit 
steep— only one entry will be 
selected from all purchases made 
from the start of the contest 
until April 24, 1996. 

-Justin Ware 


Median Income of 


Online Users: 


$50,000 to $75,000 


Netscape’s Total Assets 


as of December 31, 1994: 


$7,158,641 


Netscape’s Total Assets 



as of September 30, 1995: 


$204,417,240 


Statistics provided by Inteco Corp., 
Trish Information Services, 



The great contest contest 


A fter finding all sorts of legitimate contests, IU 
decided to surf for a different kind of game: 
competitions undertaken not for potential prizes 
but procrastination. Here are several of the least lucrative: 

The Milwaukee Web Yellow Pages Contest 
http: //www. myp. com/contest . html 
How to win: Register and wait. 

Grand Prize: A $5 gift certificate for frozen custard 

EXTRA!™ Personal Client Trivia Contest 

http://www.attachmate.com/contest 

How to win: Answer questions about Attachmate products. 

Grand Prize: An Attachmate T-shirt 

The Questel/Orbit Strange-But-True Patent Contest 


http: //www. bedrock, com/patents/sbtpc. html 
How to Win: Find a weird patent and submit it. 
Grand Prize: Two free hours on a set of Questel/ 
Orbit databases! (exclamation theirs) 

"Be a Winner, Be a Member’’ 

Quick Quiz and Drag Racing Trivia 
http: // www. dragway. com/arcade/ 

How to win: Answer questions on drag racing. 
Grand Prize: A Lebanon Valley Dragway T-shirt 

The "Don’t Hate Fido 

Because He’s Beautiful’’ Contest 

http://www.continuumsi.com/Fido/ 

How to Win: Redraw a dog. 

Grand Prize: Ummmm... recognition 




Mixed Media 


M aking Willard obsolete 

In a move to capture those online addicts who haven't seen 
the light of day since their last system crash, The Weather 
Channel recently formed an agreement with Time Inc. to create inter- 
active programming for Time Warner's Pathfinder site on the Web, as 
well as more extensive initiatives for Time Warner's Full Service 
Network in Orlando. The Pathfinder Weather Center lets visitors check 
out global forecasts, maps, graphics and other meteorological tidbits 
impossible to get just by looking out the window. So if you've ever 
wondered whether or not it's too cold to visit 7-Eleven for Cheetos, 
now you don't even have to leave your screen— just hyperlink over to 
http://pathfinder.com. 


B ut where's Pravda? 

Being Web fluent might not titillate 
potential employers as much as a master's 
degree, but being 'net literate does have its 
advantages. Thanks to a massive conflu- 
ence of publishing karma, you can now 
not only use the 'net to procrastinate at 
your current workplace, you can use it 
to find another job entirely: the 
Boston Globe , the Chicago Tribune , 
the Los Angeles Times , The New York 
Times , the San Jose Mercury News 
and The Washington Post recently 
launched CareerPath.com, a compila- 
tion of job listings from the papers' 
classified ads. The new service eventu- 
ally will fill other gaps in online employ- 
ment as well, with resume data bases, 
company profiles, and matching services 
joining the classifieds. No word on when The 
Wausau Daily Herald will get involved. 


Interactive Media Awards 


CALL FOR ENTRIES 


f*°\ | r— v 


A 

A' 



J ust don't go with Whoopi 

The first annual Interactive Media 
Awards scored a surprise ratings hit for 
Turner Broadcasting last fall. The awards 
show mostly honored achievements in multi- 
media and CD-ROMs, but this year the com- 
petition has been expanded to include online 
achievement as well, with categories ranging 
from Best User Interface to Best Online Ad. 

The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences 
hopes to parlay last year's success into fur- 
ther recognition; scheduled for December, 
the second annual AIAS Awards will try to 
broaden its audience by landing a name host 
and a juicy prime-time slot on a major network. Considerations for 
host include comedians Dennis Miller, Howie Mandel and Sinbad, 
which would suggest that the AIAS isn't competition for the Oscars 
quite yet. One suggestion from Ilf— try to get Miller. 


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5 


I 


Internet Underground 


Bye, bye MCI, 
not to mention 
Sprint and AT&T 

Remember when you were 10 years old and could- 
n't wait to try out those high-tech G.I. Joe plastic 
walkie-talkies? All powered-up with a couple of 9- 
volts, you and your best friend ran outside— the 
neighbor kids looking on jealously— to engage in 
super-secret conversations that went something 
like this-. 

"KKKKKrrrrr krrrr....waaa (feed- 
back) the fort waaaa bmmmm. Kkkkkrrrr back- 

yard.... (feedback). Over?" 

Up until recently, two-way communications 
over the 'net hasn't been much better. After about 



three minutes of garbled squawking, users run out 
of things to say, frustrated with waiting for the 
other person to finish their message before they 
can speak. Several companies, however, are now 
trying to bring Internet communications past the 
realm of walkie-talkies, if not into prime time. 

Introduced earlier this year by Vocaltec, the 
Internet Telephone (IPhone) allows users to talk to 
other IPhone subscribers in real time over the 
Internet. Using simple hardware— a high-speed (14.4 
or better) modem, a relatively fast computer and a 
microphone— subscribers are able to make long- 
distance telephone calls for the price of a local call. 

Similar programs for other platforms include 
Netphone for Mac users and MTalk, a very experi- 
mental source for UNIX users. Software ranges 
from free to about $100. 

Despite a warm reception from the online 
community, however, the long-distance giants 
aren't exactly cowering in fear over their imminent 
demise. Fuzzy sound quality, noticeable delays and 
half-duplex technology (only one person can speak 
at once) have made Internet telephones more of a 
novelty than a utility. After all, just because you 
can call Tokyo for mere pennies doesn't mean you 
want to. 

Dallas-based Camelot Corp., however, recent- 
ly upped the ante with Digiphone, a product featur- 
ing full-duplex capabilities just like a real phone. 
This advance, combined with IPhone's upcoming 
upgrade to full duplex, aims to lead the revolution 
against the long-distance companies. To quote 
Digiphone's advertising, you will "never pay a slimy 
red cent for long-distance'' again. 

"We believe that this is an additional market," 
says Vocaltec co-founder Lior Haramaty. "We're not 
necessarily replacing phone conversations. We are 
talking about something that enables you to do the 
long conversations that you don't want to do on a 
regular telephone." 




Most IPhone users still lean toward subject- 
oriented chats, rather than business or personal 
users. About 500,000 users have downloaded the 
evaluation version, with the IPhone directory 
organized by geography as well as chat subjects. 

According to Haramaty, however, non-chat 
users are picking up. "In the early implementation 
it was a lot of people doing it just for fun, but com- 
panies are now using it for meetings. We had one 
this week to Israel that was two hours— without 
the cost," he said. Although he declined to name 
them, Haramaty claims several "large" companies 
are planning to implement IPhone in the near 
future as part of their global office communica- 
tion. "We're doing longer meetings simply because 
we can," he says. 

Families are also an emerging market for 
Internet audio communication, with multiple 
computer families becoming more and more com- 
mon. "This is a cheap, easy way to communicate 
globally," says Haramaty, who recently used a 
local telephone line in Asia to listen to his son 
playing in Israel. 

With the potential for thousands, if not mil- 
lions, of people to use this kind of technology 
simultaneously, the question of sucking valuable 
bandwidth is inevitable. The emergence of com- 
plex technologies like online video (some users 
are blending the audio of IPhone with real-time 
video technology like CUSeeMe for an approxima- 
tion of videophone), combined with the ever- 
increasing numbers of e-mail users, has many 
worried that the Internet may at some point slow 



to a trickle or blackout completely. Vocaltec 
claims its products, including the new full-duplex 
version allowing speakers to talk in a more natur- 
al flow, will not overtax the Internet. 

Haramaty explains that IPhone uses only 
about 10 kilobits per second when the user is 
speaking, compared to about 24 kps for a Web 
browser using a 28.8 modem. And getting hooked 
up to IPhone or Digiphone is much easier than 
waiting for a harried operator; all you have to do 
is visit the site and download the software. Who 
knows— maybe we'll be able to get rid of Candice 
Bergen after all. 

For more information about IPhone, visit 
their Web site at http://www.vocaltec.com. 
Digiphone's Web site is at http://www.plane- 
teers.com/index.htm. If you are a Mac user, check 
out http://www.emagic.com to find out more 
about NetPhone. -Heather Irwin 


Online Service Stop 

C ompuServe conjures up Internet-only Spryte 

Feeling the heat from direct online service providers, 
CompuServe is launching an Internet-only service, 
codenamed Spryte, to capture a niche in the casual surfer envi- 
ronment. The base price is $4.95 a month, with three hours free; 
after that, the service will cost $1.95 per hour. 

Spryte's cost, though low for a com- 
mercial online service, leans toward the 
high end in comparison to local 
providers. Cheaper packages are avail- 
able for heavier addicts, such as the Gold 
Internet Club, which costs $19.95 for 20 
free hours, but an average of one hour of 
Internet access per day still runs a sub- 
scriber a hefty 40 bucks a month. 
CompuServe is counting on name recognition, simplicity, 
existing networks, software benefits and the emergence of a new 
online breed, the Internet minimalist, for expansion. "A lot of 
people don't need the full meal deal — they only need the 
basics," explains Rebecca Gelinas, CompuServe's Media 
Relations representative. 

The release of Spryte, along with the March launch of their 
new consumer-oriented commercial service WOW, should allow 
CompuServe to move beyond its initial venue into more varied 
areas. "We believe that we can segment the market further," says 
Gelinas. "We can complement our traditional service with larger 
offerings for potential users, but in order to expand, we have to 
help grow the Internet." 

million strong... but growing? 

Research recently conducted by INTECO Corp. reveals 
that the major commercial online services are experi- 
encing a swell of cancellations and turnover. Though the number 
of subscribers to America Online, Prodigy, CompuServe, GEnie 
and Delphi has grown to nearly 5.6 million households, 6.2 mil- 
lion additional users joined services only to cancel soon after 
signing on. Prodigy took the biggest hit, with 3.5 million house- 
holds logging off permanently. Genie looks the most at risk, with 
372,000 cancellations compared to a mere 46,000 subscribers. A 
spokesperson for INTECO, a research company, clarified that 
most cancellations were due to customers shifting from service 
to service, not forsaking cyberspace entirely. 



ood news for Prodigy 

On a positive note for cyberspace as a whole, but 
Prodigy in particular, an agreement between Prodigy 
and Stratton Oakmont Inc., a small brokerage company in New 
York, recognizes that online companies haven't always been able 
to regulate every piece of content on their systems. Although a 
judge ruled in May against Prodigy, declaring that the online ser- 
vice was liable for slanderous statements made on one of its bul- 
letin boards, Prodigy has since convinced Stratton to back off 
on their libel case— a joint statement from the two essentially 
lets the service off the hook, opening the door for a reversal 
of the ruling. 



CompuServe 






The tangled business 
of measuring the web 


From remedial text-based home pages to 

commercial graphics extravaganzas, the Web con- 
tinues to expand exponentially. Until recently, how- 
ever, no one has had a handle on how best to mea- 
sure its growth; attempts to track data have so far 
been rudimentary, with little success beyond 
recording the number of hits received in a given 
time frame. Monitoring clients on an unconnected 
system like the World Wide Web has proven enor- 
mously difficult, mainly because programs and 
browsers haven't seen tracking as a priority. As 
more money is invested in the Web, however, 
advertisers and companies 
have begun to recognize 
the importance of decent 
demographic data, and 
companies ranging from 
San Francisco-based I/PRO 
to Netscape have jumped at 
the chance to provide more 
accurate tracking. 

Thanks to a snippet of 

a program in your Netscape folder, more and more 
'net transactions are beginning with "give me your 
cookie." Though infrequently used in the past, cook- 
ie technology is becoming more prevalent as 
Netscape's continued simplification makes the pro- 
gram easier to use and as accurate data becomes 
crucial. Basically, Cookie technology creates the 
digital equivalent of an invisible paper trail by 
allowing site operators to track how often a user 
accesses their site, explains Leonard Feldman, 
Netscape's senior product manager. 

Although cookie technology can't tell your 
actual identity (such as John Q. Public), it can "burn" 
coding similar to an account number onto your indi- 
vidual Netscape program. Invented for the 
Marketplace MCI project late last year, cookie tech- 
nology has been used by an increasing number of 


sites to get a better handle on who's visiting their sites and how often. 

Before cookies, curious servers tracked clients mainly by Internet 
Protocol addresses. Many servers assign a different IP address each time a 
user logs in, however, making this unreliable, and hit gauges are notoriously 
sloppy. Cookie technology will pick up some of the slack, but what about those 
companies that want more extensive information? 

That's where Internet Profiles Corporation (I/PRO) comes in. Realizing 
that current measurement tactics fall far short of what most advertisers or 
commercial sites require and expect, I/PRO provides data on the number of 
visitors, the frequency with which they access and locations. I/PRO also takes 
into consideration the importance of privacy on the 'net: Tina Lin, I/PRO's 
director of business development explains that I/PRO felt profiles could pro- 
vide enough demographic information 
without having to track individuals, so 
I/PRO reads only a demographic profile 
provided by the user. 

I/PRO's recent alliance with Nielsen 
Media Research has also given the compa- 
ny credibility among agencies searching 
for reliable numbers. Nielsen is jointly 
marketing several of I/PRO's existing prod- 
ucts, including I/COUNT and I/AUDIT, and helping to develop new measure- 
ment systems. With a client base that includes Netscape, Yahoo and Microsoft, 
as well as established television advertisers like Chrysler, Playboy and Xerox, 
the company should grow as a result of the alliance. 

"These companies have their measurement models from TV, print and so 
on," says Lin. "It's only realistic to expect that people from other mediums will 
expect certain types of information, and having the credibility of someone like 
Nielsen is critically important." 

With current evaluative models so weak, I/PRO's technology, combined 
with Nielsen’s expertise, should allow for more accurate measurement of the 
Internet. That, in turn, would benefit both advertisers and those sites seeking 
sponsorship once everyone agrees which sites are getting the most traffic. 

'Net measurement may finally be catching up to the needs of businesses 
jumping onto the Web as the next new frontier. Thorough data doesn't help 
only companies, however; better evaluations also allows content providers to 
respond more thoroughly to feedback. "We're just trying to facilitate an 
exchange of information," Lin says, "but it has to be a win-win situation in 
order for this to work." -J.W. and Arnie Katz 



U 

^ 22 



[ulti-user gaming on 

the 'net will go to a 
whole new level when 
MGM Interactive and Worlds Inc. 
introduce The Outer Limits game 
early in 1996. The game will pro- 
vide a wide selection of digital 
personas, known as 
avatars, for players 
to embody as they 
interact in the 
mysterious online 
world based on 
MGM's new version of the 1960s classic TV series The 




— Pushing the limits 

Outer Limits. In the most expansive attempt ever to 
have broad-use gaming, The Outer Limits will allow 
up to 5,000 users to play simultaneously and even 
more after Worlds Inc. comes out with updated soft- 
ware later in 1996. The show's eerie plot lines and 
bizarre characters ought to make it one of the more 
surreal interactive activities online. The Outer Limits 
airs on Showtime and in first-run syndication 
nationwide. Worlds Inc. is a leading producer of 
networked virtual reality programs that allow many 
users to interact at one. Until the game comes out, 
check out other Worlds Inc. cool stuff and the future 
of hot apps (such as the freakyWorlds Chat program) 
at http://www.worlds.net. 


J 


Jj Internet Underground 






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TO GET A CLOSER LOOK AT INTERNET EDUCATION, IU 

News Editor Justin Ware enrolled in a law 

COURSE SPONSORED BY COURT TV. THE COURSE, 
TAUGHT BY UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LAW 

Professor Ethan Katsh, was conducted via e- 

MAIL, WITH THE SYLLABUS AND READINGS AVAILABLE 
OVER THE Web. 

If you ever get depressed about your lack 
of e-mail, enroll in an online course. On a 
day with a good class discussion (i.e., the 
O.J. verdict), I found my inbox stuffed with 
opinions and analysis ranging from 
defeatist proclamations on race relations 
to an angry diatribe on judicial control. 

One thing these debates did make clear 
was how much the participants in the 
course varied; though the majority were 
older than traditional students (the class 
included one great-grandmother), their 
backgrounds ranged from bar owners to 
advertising copywriters to travel agents. 
Some wanted to be lawyers, some were 
just self-professed Court TV junkies, while 
others simply wanted to know how to 
clear a traffic ticket, though they had to go 
through Kafka to get there. All participants 
had a distinct angle on the law, with a 
wealth of distinct voices stemming from 
assorted experiences with the legal system. 
But what about the course itself? Did the 
class justify the expense? Well, since the 
expense amounted only to a couple of CDs, 
it would have been difficult for it not to. 
And considering the commitment level of 
the participants, the course more than met 
my expectations. Certainly, arguments via 
e-mail lack the heated vigor of a real colle- 
giate environment, but then again, 
responses were usually well-reasoned, 
thorough and thought out, all far from a 
given in most college seminars. No one in 
the class seemed to be expecting anything 
more than a chance to hash out legal 
issues, debate varying philosophies and 
become better read in legal theory— in 
short, to become better educated about 
the laws we live under. If that isn’t a per- 
fectly noble use for bandwidth, 1 don't 
know what is. 



Going to school on the net 

Practically every educational institution in the country, if not the 
world, is looking at the Internet as a conduit to an untapped collection 
of inquiring minds. As more and more educators explore the fringes of 
cyberspace, institutions from vocational schools to universities to 
kindergartens are going online with an eye toward providing conve- 
nient, low-cost education. But is online education ever going to be a 
legitimate alternative to traditional classrooms? 

The answer depends on who you ask. Two groups dominate higher 
education online-, the Electronic University Network and the Globewide 
Network Academy. EUN, a league of colleges, universities and busi- 
nesses, lets students collect credits or even get degrees by modem. 

Most online degrees are in business management or administration, 
though liberal-arts classes are increasingly being offered. 

"instead of just SCATTERED 
classes, they (online courses) 

have REAL curriculums." 

Ken Luttrell, public affairs officer 
of the Department of Education 

GNA, a worldwide organization of researchers and schools, is trying 
to develop new structures to make education more affordable, but at 
the moment, GNA itself provides only technical and administrative ser- 
vices; member organizations determine their own curricula and choose 
their own materials. 

Colleges offering online classes know that their rep- 
utations ride on an ability to maintain high standards. / \ 

This usually prompts a conservative approach; col- \ \ 

leges won't let online ed replace traditional courses \f \\ 
unless augmented by in-person studies. Though online \\ \\ 

student bodies have so far been highly motivated, with \ \ 

most students over 25, employed, and anxious to advance \ \ 

their careers, the student-teacher bond in the end deter- V\ \ \ 
mines the success of learning, so most colleges require some ¥1 \ \ 

amount of human interaction. Ip \ 

Online classes have several advantages, especially when com- \ \ 

pared with the other staple of distance learning, correspondence \ J 
courses. Tuition is generally much cheaper than universities or 
even community colleges, and motivated college students can acquire 
degrees from a variety of institutions including the University of 
California at Berkeley, City University in Los Angeles and the University 
of Wisconsin at Madison. 

Ken Luttrell, the public affairs officer of the Department of 
Education, sees online education as a legitimate and growing alterna- 
tive to in-class studies, especially for older students, "The quality of 
many of these classes is outstanding," declares Luttrell. "Instead of just 
scattered classes, they have real curriculums. For example, if I'm an 
economics teacher at the University of Colorado, I present the classes 
and then present that same material online. There's no difference in 
the quality." 

For the most part, however, current online education is mostly sup- 
plemental, though more and more institutions seem to be providing 
online classes every term. The best sessions are low-cost, convenient 
and accredited, and students who are well-motivated and ambitious 
can probably find a course worth exploring. With increasing numbers 
of universities and colleges entering cyberspace, online classes are well 
on their way to becoming a viable option for continued education. O 

-Joyce Worley 



Pitchfork Billy Bowen 



Hackers Hacked? 

It probably shouldn't have come as a surprise to MGM. 

After all, promoting a dubious cyberthriller called 
Hackers on the Web is like walking into a convention 
for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals 
wearing a fur coat. But MGM's Hackers page fell prey 
to a little irony this summer when a scheming hacker 
(or, as they delineated, a cracker) broke into the site 
and scribbled yellow eyes and beards onto the 
graphic posted on the home page. An apology was 



theoretically written by the hackers, but the 
release was treated with some skepticism. Many 
respondents within the hacker community felt 
that the scribbling was a ploy by the studio. Of 
course, if it was a ploy, it certainly didn’t make 
much of a difference. Something more than magic 
markers would have been needed to salvage that 
computhriller. 

Publishing Sinn 

What do you do when your political party is 
banned from TV? You go and get yourself a Web 
site. Sinn Fein, the political party of the Irish 
Republican Army, is trying to avoid censorship and 
communicate with supporters world wide via the 
Web, Usenet and listservs. Recent concerns that U.S. 
and U.K. intelligence services have been snooping on 
the site haven't been confirmed, but Ireland's ground 
peace right now clearly doesn't apply to the 'net— 
when the most recent IRA statement concerning the 
decommissioning of their weapons stockpile was cross- 
posted to Soc.Culture.British from Soc.Culture.Irish, a 
flame war of epic proportions ensued. As President 
Clinton gets ready for the time-honored presidential tra- 


insider 


dition of Irish root finding, things are likely to heat up further in 
the stalled peace process; if you want to hear a point of view 
seldom expressed in the mainstream media, point your browsers 
to http://www.ma.utexas.edu/users/fodea/aprn/SFhome.html for the 
Sinn Fein home page and http://www.ma.utexas.edu/users/fodea/ 
aprn/current/news/index.html for the weekly Irish Republican news- 
paper in its online form. 

Nothing for Bill Gates, Either 

We checked out the Microsoft Network's reference shelf and typed 
in the words "Internet" and "World Wide Web" to see what kind of 
info MSN provided on the topic. Much to our surprise, no references 
came up for either, even though it searched their entire collection of 
dictionaries and encyclopedias. Maybe we should have checked on 
America Online. 

Book-Bagging Brits Nipped by the 'Net 

After everything that's happened to the British Royal Family over the 
past few years (mass separations, divorces, toe-sucking fetishism), it 
came as bit of a surprise when the British establishment pounced on 
The Housekeeper's Diary by Wendy Berry as an object for censorship 
this fall. The ban garnered a lot of attention, as suppression usually 
does— the book sold out in New York within days of its publication 
solely on the strap line "Banned in Britain" added to the cover. But dirt 
never strays too far from home. Even if the book didn't make it onto 
British newsstands, the gossip slack was quickly picked up by the 
Internet. The magazine Scallywag (which was once sued for libel 
for claiming that John Major was having an affair with his caterer) 
published its spin on the tale via its Web site http ://www. demon. 
co.uk/xyz/Scallywag/index.html and various U.K. newsgroups. 
Scallywag claims that "Diana felt that Buckingham Palace faced an 
immediate epidemic of AIDS," supposedly because Prince Andrew (the 
Queen's favorite son) was HIV-positive. The magazine went on to say 
that Fergie took two AIDS tests herself after finding her husband in bed 
with another navy chap named Lt. Cox. Are any of the stories true? 
Obviously, no one knows for sure, but Brits were nervous enough 
about the rumors to ban the book outright. Now if they could only 
censor the Internet... O 


GOT ANY DIRT? SEND IT ALONG TO THE IU INSIDER AT IUa)MCS.NET. 


’net nomenclature: 

Little snippets of slang 

Chain Gang: A group of friends on the Web who have links 
only to each other. 

Q-Tip: The snippet of video that appears after you've gotten bored 
10 seconds into downloading a Quicktime movie and hit stop. 
Nomepage: A home page with nothing there — a picture of a cat, 
maybe a link or two, but, in general, a cold, isolated pit stop 
(named in homage to the town in Alaska). 

Upholstery: Pointless graphics that do nothing of importance 
other than needlessly slow the download. 

Spanking the 'net: The act of surfing the Internet only to look 
for sex sites and naughty GIFs. 

Annie: Used to describe a site that hasn't been updated in so long 
it seems abandoned. 



December ’95 


(Your Monthly Dose of Gossip and Conjecture) 




do we 



need to know? 


Dirty Laundry 

The Men's UnderWWWear Survey 
http://www.execpc.com/-pdemarco/waming.html 
Until reading this survey, the most thought we ever gave to our 
undergarments was rather basic. "Are they clean, so in case I get 
hit by a wayward bus, I will not be embarrassed, as my mother 
warned?" After reading this survey, we shuddered at such naive 
notions. As the following select answers show, underwear seems 
to be an integral part of many people's lives. We've reprinted only 
parts of the survey, maintained by BoxerGuy95a>aol.com. The rest 
of it you'll have to explore yourself. Let's just say it gets a bit dirty. 
Respondents: 755 



How old are you? 

Under 10 0 

41-45 76 

11-15 13 

46-50 45 

16-20 65 

5i-55 32 

21-25 *36 

56-60 3 

26-30 156 

61-65 3 

3i-35~- 143 

66-70.... 0 

36-40 90 

Over 70... 3 


What style of underwear are you 
wearing right now? 

None 91 

Full-cut boxers 73 

Trim-cut boxers 38 

Flannel boxers 21 

Silk boxers 8 

Gripper (snap front) boxers 6 

Yoke style boxers 1 

French (side ties) boxers 1 

Boxer briefs (sport boxers) 77 

Classic white briefs 186 

Fashion color briefs 53 

Silk briefs 4 

Bikini briefs 76 

Pouch-style briefs 35 

Mesh briefs 5 

Sock-style briefs 3 



Thong 28 

Jockstrap 50 

Union suit 2 

Womens panties 9 

Other style 5 

Has anyone had an influence 
on your choice of underwear 
styles? Who? 

(check all that apply) 

No one has influenced me 225 

Male friend 290 

Brother or male relative 40 

Father 44 

Female Friend 46 

Sister or female relative 6 

Mother 51 

Wife or female lover 64 

Husband or male lover 177 

TV, movies or advertising 282 

Have you ever had sex with a 
partner while wearing or using 
underwear? 

No 175 

Started out wearing underwear 497 

Asked partner to wear underwear..... 168 

Wore underwear throughout 218 

Underwear ripped off during 276 

Like for partner to wear 206 

Like to wear myself..... 190 

Have you ever worn or let your 
underwear show in public 
on purpose? 

Don’t wear underwear 13 

No 341 

Occassionally..... 347 

Often 39 

Most of the time 12 



Have you ever bought, bor- 
rowed or stolen anyone's used 
underwear? (check all that apply) 

No 320 

Yes (with permission) 157 

Yes (without permission) 308 

Have traded with others m 

Have bought clean used underwear 26 

Have bought dirty used underwear 14 

How would you characterize 
your feelings about men's 
underwear? (check all that apply) 

Don’t wear it, don’t like it 15 

Wear it for hygienic reasons 158 

Put on the first pair I grab 109 

Mood determines what I wear 471 

Activity determines choice 413 

Love to model my underwear 166 

Men's underwear is sexy 485 

I check out underwear lines 297 

I buy underwear as gifts 77 

Loiter in underwear department 194 

I have a strong underwear fetish 121 

Comments from survey takers: 

"Good underwear is like fine wine, the 
look and feel of each type and material is to 
be savored. Three cheers for Lycra and Lycra 
and cotton blends. Would encourage a similar 
survey on swim wear preferences.” 

" What about having a 
waist band test. 

Show designs and 
patterns, see how 
many people can 
detect brands.” 

"This is weird.” 



is itworth it? 

With sites increasingly requesting that Internet 
surfers fork over some cash or credit before enter- 
ing, IU decided to check out a site each month, pay 
the entry fee, and then let our readers know whether 
it's truly worth the price of admission. 

Pay before play: ESPNET SportsZone 

ESPNET SportsZone, one of the most popular sites on 
the net, recently added a series of subscriber-only 
features to their sports coverage, offering those will- 
ing to fork out a $4.95 monthly subscription fee a 
slew of additional statistics, RealAudio clips, GIFs and 
wisdom from columnists. The additional elements 
cover an amazing range: from NFL drive 
*1 charts to Major League Baseball profiles; 
incisive debates on the significance of 



I 


sports to impressively vapid chat room banter; the Sportscenter 
theme on RealAudio to in-depth coverage of Big 10 hockey teams. 
The subscriber features are certainly thorough, but are they worth 
the cost? 

The answer largely depends on your relationship to the athletic 
world. If every node of your lymphatic system sweats statistics and 
athletic analysis, then the monthly fee may be justified as 
SportsZone seems one of the most comprehensive services around. 
The columns are solid, the multimedia extensive (though often bol- 
stered by fluff) and the games dissected to the point that even the 
most diehard fanatic will feel inundated. For most Web surfers, 
however, the free features and stats provided by SportsZone should 
easily satisfy. Though, 
we must say, ESPNET 
deserves accolades for 
keeping the free portions 
as up-to-date and inter- 
esting as their money- 
making counterpart. 


Internet Underground 













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The Nipple Server 

http ://www.thoughtport. 
com/spinnwebe/nipple.htnil 

"Go the next one. Man, this is weird. 
Let's see another." 

The staff was huddled around one 
monitor, flipping through the archives 
of Greg's Nipple Server. Scores of pho- 
tographs of a guy's nipple. His left 
nipple. Pink, unassuming and utterly 
unremarkable, we could only won- 
der: Why is this on the Web? 

We spoke with Greg Galcik, the 
site's creator and possessor of the 
nipple. He admits that he developed 
it with the goal of getting on the 
Useless Pages to generate exposure 
for his larger site, SpinnWebe. 

Galcik awakens each morning and 
takes a photograph of his nipple 
with a QuickTake digital camera. 


panache, and overall nipplish quality." 

Galcik works for Point 
Communications surfing the net and 
reviewing sites. His site, SpinnWebe 
(German for spiderweb), is a great col- 
lection of bizarre links and interactive 
activities. SpinnWebe is host to The 
Magic g-Ball and 1-900-ZWEBLO7 

and one version of 


m & 



Viewers vote on 

the nipple's perkiness, 
panache, and overall 

nipplish quality/' 


- NIPPLE SERVER 


The nipple looks the same from 
day to day, although lately 
Galcik has experimented with 
shooting from different angles 
and in varying areas of his 
house. Early nipples were 
often blurry, it seems Greg's 
photography improved with 
experience, as the shots are usu- 
ally clear now. Viewers are invited 
to rank each shot on its "perkiness, 




"The Dysfunctional Family Circus." 
Of his own family, he told his 
parents about the site "as a pre- 
emptive strike," in case his 
Web-surfing mother stumbled 
across it. His newlywed bride, 
Debb, "initially felt alarm, and 
thought it was weird, but she's 
knows what I'm like and doesn't 
mind." His in-laws are another story. 
Galcik feels sure that they know, but all 
parties are loathe to bring it up. 

His e-mail response has been gener- 
ally favorable. Sometimes people write 
in to suggest that Galcik lose weight, 


1 


Internet Underground 


which hurts his feelings. He rarely gets 
lustful e-mail. "But I did get a weird let- 
ter once. This person from Australia, I 
couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, 
wrote that they wanted to suck and fon- 
dle my nipple for hours. I wrote back to 
say that if they wanted to pay for my air- 
fare to Australia, that would be okay. 
Because I would like to see Australia." 


Debbies Do die Web 

http://www.ucalgary.ca/ 

~aarmstro/deb/aeb.html 

Web demographics might be over- 
whelmingly male, but you'd be hard- 
pressed to find a page devoted to Steves, 
Dons, or Bills. Debbie Armstrong-Bose, 
however, has hotlisted all the Debs 
throughout cyberspace, from Little 
Debbie Snacks to Tropical Storm Debby 
to random individuals with nothing of 
importance except name association. 
Some are better than others (Debbie 
Mancini even offers to help find you a 
job) but almost all are worth a look, 
except, of course, for the Debbie Gibson 
Fan Page -- being named Debbie doesn't 
excuse everything. 


The Stephen Kings' Page 

http ://www.isisw3 .com/ 
sking/ 

Here is a collection of tales of terror 
from ordinary guys cursed with the 
name Stephen King. They live, as the site 
notes, "defined by who we are not." 
These hapless Stephens find themselves 
hounded for autographs, e-mailed by 
misguided fans and questioned at inter- 
national borders. Each one is forced to 
confront his identity each time he's 
faced with the unavoidable question, 
"Are you the real Stephen King?" The 
collective responds-. "This question suf- 
fers from being way too existential." 

The Stephens refer to that other 
Stephen King as "TFA"— The Famous 
Author. Most 'net-surfers seem to find 






EVERY SO OFTEN, the IU staff comes across a Web site 
we'd like to share with our readers that might be in BAD 
TASTE or a SHOCK to our gentler readers. So for the 


ter 


DARING and not too EASILY 




OFFENDED, checkout 

:tp://www.io.com/~nightime/bodies.html 


page that offers a whole new meaning to the phrase 


REMEMBER, we warned you... 


Stephen King, Toronto 

. ■■■■ ■ - . 1 ■■■■'•< -p . » ■■ g g;.. . .... . wmmm — ■ 


Bir tltdate : 22 Sept 1952 

Place at Birth: Vallington, Surrey England 

Residence: Utopia, 50mi north o t Toronto, Canada 

Occupation: Senior Technologist 

«tnry about being Stephen King: 


In Decenber 1994, 'Esquire 1 magazine (British edition) printed my 
ninnrr air.h a nixelated version of TFA's oicture. 


.J 


H diuiu 

president of 
At http://www.infonet.netj| 
showcase/famradio/aids.htm 

Camping explains why he believes that AIDS is 
a curse meant to eradicate homosexuals every- 
where. He backs up this belief with scripture, not- 
ing that a harsh judgment will 
come to those who abandon 
"the natural use of the woman" 

(Romans 1:26, 27). One thing 
that Camping does not explain 
through scripture is why a 
growing number of heterosexu- 
als, including children, con- 
tract the disease; though 


Camping refers to AIDS as a 
direct curse to homosexual- 
ity, which he calls "a very 
clear-cut sin." Camping 
feels compelled to spread 
his word because "We're so 
close to the end of the 
world" and therefore. 
Judgment Day, of course. 
Hit a hyperlink at the end 
of his message to find out 
how you can be born again. 


the page by searching for TFA, and the guest 
book is littered with people talking about 
Christine and The Dark Tower. It seems some 
people can't catch a clue. Oh, the horror. 


Stephen Turner's Coldlist 

http://wvvw.statslabxam.ac.uk/— 

sretl/coldlist.html 

A triumph of the Web at its most useless, 
Stephen Turner's Coldlist offers links to sites of, 
in his words, "Very little interest to almost 
everybody." Blessed with no subtext, none of 
that pesky editorializing and a refreshing lack 
of attractive graphics, the Coldlist provides no 
reason for a visit except to discover what some 
poor sucker at the Finnish Soccer League spent 
time uploading. 


Church of Euthanasia 

http://www.paranoia.com/coe/ 

According to their home page, the Church of 
Euthanasia was inspired by a dream in which 
the founder, the Rev. Korda, was confronted by 
an alien intelligence known only as The Being 
who spoke of a certain doom for the planet. 
Korda pulled himself out of bed moaning the 
church's now infamous slogan, "Save the 
Planet— Kill Yourself." 

Evidentally, his followers did not take him 
too seriously, as there are still plenty around to 
contribute to this rather enormous site which 
explains the church's pillars of suicide, abortion, 
cannibalism and sodomy. Though mostly text, 
the site offers many bizarre academic instruc- 
tions, such as how to cut a human being for can- 
nibalism. Worth looking up are the impres- 
sive list of startling, unattributed facts 
about vegetarianism and overpopu- 
lation, and the first-ever Suicide 
Assistance Hotline. The church 
also has a mailing list, from major- 
domo@net.com. In the body 
of the message, type subscribe 
snuffit-L. 






The Shrine 
of Bazooka Joe 

http://www.ugcs.caltech. 
ecru/ ~ j oe/bazooka_html/ 


Celebrating one of America's 
unsung comic heroes in the Shrine 
of Bazooka Joe, this site breaks 
down 50 Bazooka comics, cata- 
loging them into chapters and 
themes such as "Bazooka Joe as 
a poor role model." Each comic 
is deconstructed with critical 
commentary examining the 
socioeconomic implications of the 
subliminal messages offered by each 
simple strip. All this plus a new for- 
tune every time you visit! 


The Internet 
Crime Archives 


http://underground.net/Ait/ 

Crime/archives.html 


"They did it, they liked it, they did it 
again!" That's the slogan for this site, 
which offers more information than any 
reasonable person would want to know 
about the most prominent serial killers, 
mass murderers and deadly cult leaders 
throughout history. Knowing what mis- 
deeds occurred at the hands of these 


Shamanistic 
Healing-Energies 
on the Internet 

http://www.prgone. 
com/ibus/dpedro/ 

Feeling a little down? Experiencing 
angst and guilt after downloading 
all those erotica binaries? Perhaps 
Don Pedro can help you out. Able 
to transmit healing vibes over 
phone lines, Pedro tells you to sit in men mac ^ e us a ^ e uncomfortable, 

front of the screen at very specific especially when they seem to be almost 

heralded for their efforts. But we must 

admit, the site is rather exhaustive. You'll 

"Place your left 

hand near or directly 
toward the screen. . . '' 





1 ! 



times of the 
day, extending 
your left arm 
until you feel 
heat and a tick- 
ling sensation that normally comes only 
from coffee. Atheists and Agnostics are 
welcome, providing, of course, that you 
don't mind staring for 10 minutes at a 
portrait of Jesus. 


find profiles of Richard Speck, The Green 
River Killer and Marc Levine, "who liked 
guns but hated women." You can also go 
step-by-step through a mass murder in a 
convenience store. Within this site, 
there's a link to an awful page with mul- 
tiple photos of a dismembered part of 
the male anatomy. There's a disturbing 
graphic portrait of David Koresh in an 



-DON PEDRO, 

SHAMANSTIC HEALING ENERGIES 


Pi 

w 


30 t, 


1 


Internet Underground 



almost-Messiah like scene. In the 
same area, "Killer Cults," you'll find a 
detailed biography of the Rev. Jim 
Jones of Jonestown fame. 


Snow Globe 
of the Month 

http://www.webcom. 
com/ —foxstu/snow.html 

Collections on the Web range 
from the awe-inspiring art of the 
Louvre to the nap-inspiring CDs 
of a sophomore at Hofstra. 
Falling somewhere between 
these two extremes are the 
snow globes of the Fox Studios, 
a photo and design studio in 
Minneapolis. Their Snow Globe 
of the Month site includes 
snowy reminders from an 
eclectic assortment of destina- 
tions ranging from Paris to the 
National Freshwater Fishing 
Hall of Fame in Hayward, Wise. 
Each globe has been lushly 
captured in a static state (sorry 
no Quick Time video clips of 
the globes being shaken), and 
is accompanied by an engaging 
travelogue. 


Non Mattel 
Plastic Princes 

http://darmoiy.coni/ 

~zenugbl/gayDiUy.html 

Pity poor Ken. Despite his all- 
American good looks and well- 
sculpted plastic torso, he's been 
the whipping boy of the doll 
market for years thanks to his 
lack of a certain male appendage 
and speculation that he's been 
secretly trying on Barbie's 
clothes. If you want a doll with a 
little more meat who isn't afraid 
to face his sexuality head-on, 
try Billy, the first Out and Proud 
Gay Doll. Billy, available for $245 
(that's not a typo) comes with 12 
stunning outfits and is "heroically 
endowed," something this site 
stresses time and again. 







Wacky Patent 
of the Month 








http://colitz.com/site/ 

wacky.htm 


With more than 100,000 patents 
awarded annually by the U.S. Patent 
Office, not every inven- 
tion can be the 
light bulb, combustion 
engine or even the 
Flowbee. That's where regis- 
tered patent attorney 
Michael J. Colitz, Jr.'s 
Wacky Patent of the 
Month comes into play. 
Colitz is "devoted to rec- 
ognizing selected inven- 
tors and their remark- 
able and unconventional 
patented inventions" 
such as the stomach- 
churning tapeworm trap 
and the combined gro- 
cer's package, grater, 
slicer and mouse- and 
fly-trap. Replete with full 
illustrations and exhaus- 
tive descriptions, one 
hopes Colitz will expand 
beyond the pest trap 
theme 


Charlie's 
Sneaker Pages 

http://www.neosoft. 

com/~sneakers/ 


Sneaker freak Charlie decided 
it was really important that 
the world get a chance to 
gaze at the splendor of his 
accumulated sneaker wis- 
dom. With an apparent affec- 
tion for Converse Chuck 
Taylors yet still brand 
fickle, Charlie shows off his 
collection of sports-ori- 
ented footwear 
with his own 
photos to spot- 
light individual 
sneaker brands, then discuss- 
es their superiority over 
other products. His home 
page tells us that Charlie 
works for Boeing as a software designer for 
the International Space Station. Charlie, that 
prankster, even links to a page that tells you 
how Boeing's common stock performs. So 
helpful, that Charlie. O 




classic weird 


he Capt. James T. Kirk 
Sing-AIong Page 

http :// www.ama.ca I tech . 
eclu/~ mrm/ki rk. h tm I 


We thought his overly earnest solilo- 
quies were bad enough. Then we found 
the evidence of William Shatner’s par- 
ticipation in a dark, disturbing fad of 
the late 1960s in which celebrities with 
talents that barely accommodated 
limited TV roles decided to 
venture onto vinyl. In 
Shatner's case, this 
proved to be more 
embarrassing than 
any of his "realistic" 
hair pieces. This 
site, established by 
students at the 
California Institute of 


Technology, offers downloads of songs from Shatner's patheti 
cally amusing 1968 album, A Transformed Man. 

Put simply, he's out of control as he recites lyrics to 
"Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds" in a bizarre combination of 
breathy beatnik and screaming lunacy, not completely 
unlike Wayne Newton being impaled by a javelin. 

But the true gem here is the patently loathsome rendi- 
tion of Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man, cited as one of 
the worst Dylan covers ever in The Worst Rock Vi' Roll 
Records of All Time. The book notes that in Tambourine 
Man Shatner "invests each line with either significantly 
more or less emotion than is called for, and he occa- 
sionally puts emphasis on the wrong wordL.He screams 
louder and louder after the song is supposed to end, like 
a kid running after an ice cream truck." 

This site also links to other vocal missteps by Star Trek 
crew members, including the tune Highly Illogical from 
Leonard Nimoy's The Way / Feel , sappy tunes from Brent 
Spiner aka Data and Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura 
in the original series. • 


Shatner, too earnest for words, tried "music" in 1968 



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WELCOME TO "THE FAILED BARBIE HOME PAGE" Ever since Barbie made her heralded debut as the stan- 
dard for modern female beauty (despite being a anatomical anomaly) the good folks at Mattel have attempted to keep 
her look up-to-date with "special" editions of Barbie to capture untapped parts of the plastic doll market However ; not 
every marketing concept , no matter how seemingly brilliant or artfully conceived , makes it in the cold , fickle world of 
consumerism. Sometimes even shining examples of well-intentioned , yet horribly off-the-mark strategic savvy fall by 
the wayside. Surely, that must happen to Barbie, too-even her world isnt perfect. Such masterpieces of design should 
not be lost, even if they will never find a market. We've collected them here. 





WORKING GIRL BARBIE 

Sometimes even Barbie has to get 
out there and make a little extra 
non-taxable cash to pay those hefty 
pink Dream Corvette payments! 
Working Girl Barbie comes with 
patchwork rabbit fur coat, thigh-high 
boots and spandex minidress. 
Accessories include special Barbie 
pepper spray and black-eye makeup 
kit! Also available, Streetwalker 
Skipper and Midnight Cowboy Ken. 


MICHIGAN MILITIA 

BARBIE A Barbie with a cause! 

Special talking Barbie denies her involvement in the Oklahoma 
Bombing and espouses her desire for less government control! 
Comes with pink Dream Ryder Truck. Special accessories include 
pre-1994-ban assault weapons and special NRA card! 


RADIOACTIVE 
BARBIE She’s hot 
-literally! This Barbie 
comes ready to deal 
with the aftermath of 
any nuclear crisis. 
Demonstrating to 
young girls that it’s 
always good to take 
precautions when 
dealing with especially 
dense, dangerous 
atomic chemicals! To 
use with Barbie’s 
Dream Reactor set. 


KEN WANTS TO BE BARBIE BARBIE 

Ed Wood put it best: “I like wearing women’s clothing. It 
just makes me feel comfortable.” Ken knows how Ed 
feels. He’s seen Glen or Glenda at least a dozen times. 
So let Ken get in touch with his female side with a 
whole special line of wardrobe and accessories, includ- 
ing angora sweaters, extra-large pumps, leather pants 
and Judy Garland portraits. Also available: Don’t Ask, 
Don’t Tell G.l. Joe. 


HIT THESE LINKS 

to see other failed 
Barbie concepts: 

Barbie Von Bulow 


Methadone Clinic Barbie 


Bounced Check Barbie 


Operation Rescue Barbie 

Ken Kesev 

(comes with electric Kool-Aid 
Acid Bus) 

Jailbait Skipper 

Hairy Back Ken 

Body Piercing Barbie 

{with regenerating flesh ) 

That Awkward Age Skipper 

(with braces, bad skin and 
poor self-esteem) 


GENETIC MUTATION BARBIE 

Even if you’ve got an extra limb, you don’t 
have to be unfashionable; you just need 
more closet space! With limbs that detach 

and reattach to 
different parts of 
Barbie’s anatomy, 
this special edition 
comes with the 
Chemical 
Experiment Gone 
Horribly Wrong 
Play set. 


*stuff Our lawyers said we had to say about this page: Barbie, Ken and Skipper are registered trademarks of the Mattel, Inc. Obviously, 
none of these concepts were neither conceived nor approved by Mattel in any way. We like Barbie, we do. This is just a parody, and only a parody. If 
these were real Barbie concepts, you’d be beating a path to the nearest Toys ‘R’ Us to buy them, right? Come to think of it, all this stuff applies for G.l. 
Joe and his makers at Hasbro, Inc., too. 












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Rich Borge/Gravity Workshop 


TWO HACKERS FOUND CRACKS AT NETSCAPE AND BUSTED 


The 


Around the 


ot since the killer bee has a bug 
caused as much alarm as the one 
David Wagner and Ian Goldberg 
discovered last fall. 

Acting on an educated hunch, the 
two University of California at 
Berkeley grad students found and exploited a 
weakness in Netscape Navigator web browser 
that allowed them to crack supposedly secure 
documents. Rather than exploit the flaw, the 
pair immediately took their findings and post- 
ed them on the Internet. By the next day, the 

story of the bug had made The 
New York Times , CNN and just 
about every other forum that 
carries news about the online 
world. Barely three weeks later, 
Wagner and Goldberg were in 
the news again, when they 
brought to public attention an obscure security 
fault in the backbone of the Internet itself. Up 
until that point, most people took it for grant- 
ed that Internet security was under control 
enough to allow the mass orgy of online com- 
merce for which businesses are gearing up. 

Now, the very bedrock of the new frontier 
is suspect. “Security is a subjective process,” 
says Jeff Treuhaft, security product manager at 
Netscape Communications. “We have under- 
stood all along that there is no such thing as 
100 percent Internet security. There never will 
be.” Marty Levine, the editor of the Digital 





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Technology Report and an indus- 
try analyst, concurs: “With any 
security scheme, it’s a matter of 
when, not if, security will be bro- 
ken. The break-in only reinforces 
the perception that there is no 
total security on the Internet.” 

Good Story, Bad Press 

If many people already knew that 
Internet security is an illusion at 
best, why did Wagner and 
Goldbergs’ findings generate the 
uproar that they did? Part of the 
answer lies in the financial pages. 

Last August, Netscape made its ini- 
tial public stock offering. The 
stock was expected to open at $28 
a share; it immediately skyrocket- 
ed to almost three times that 
much, before settling down to around a still astonishing 
$58 a share. For a few dizzying minutes, Netscape — a 
company that had an income of $16 million the previous 
fiscal year — was valued at $2.7 billion. 

Thus, the Netscape browser security flap in 
September came as a wake-up call to many of the com- 
panies who saw Netscape’s stock success as a green light 
to set up shop in cyberspace. Netscape’s Treuhaft feels 
that while the media coverage of the flaws made many 
people think about Internet security for the first time, it 
shouldn’t have come as a shock to anyone. “I’m not sure 
who it has been a bombshell for. We were surprised at 



BY JOHN WESLEY HARDIN 

i lUi -4-i 

(“S' 

\ tTfltlTt 

r i' i Vt t i 

December ’95 






the sensationalism of the story,” he says. “I 
think the press especially has taken a keen 
interest in the story and taken some editorial 
liberties in how they portray the problems.” 

Treuhaft is especially upset with the way 
that the second security story played in the 
press. “That , second security break was not 
really new. What (Wagner and Goldberg) 
described was the ability within a network to 
change a program that a user was download- 
ing, while it was being downloaded. They 
weren’t changing the file on disk somewhere, 
they were changing it as it crossed the net- 
work.” The problem, Treuhaft says, is the 
media’s misconception that this was a new, 
unknown bug a pair of hackers had somehow 
discovered. “Anyone with an interest in the 
Internet could have easily found this infor- 
mation in literally dozens, if not hundreds, of 
places. It’s been generally known for quite 


Netscape’s position is that the browser securi- 
ty break, though important, was not a major set- 
back for the company. “The stock prices contin- 
ue to go up, so I think that may be indicative of 
something” says Treuhaft. “In general the 
investor community are smart people. They 
aren’t swayed by news stories and they aren’t 
swayed by Web postings, and they all understood 
that Netscape wasn’t the first company to deliver 
security solutions for the Internet; Netscape was 
not the first company to have bugs in their soft- 
ware and certainly won’t be the last.” 


some time. All that (Wagner and Goldberg) 
were trying to do was raise awareness.” 

Wagner and Goldberg posted their findings 
to the Web because they said that they hoped 
it would be for the public’s good to draw 
attention to Internet security. Treuhaft agrees. 
“Folks like (Wagner and Goldberg) and many 
before them have taken the Netscape program 
and put it through its paces to help us make it 
a better product. In that sense, their efforts are 
definitely in the interest of Netscape and the 
interest of all the users out there who enjoy 
using the product.” 

The break in should actually increase con- 
fidence in Netscape’s security, Treuhaft main- 
tains, because “consumers realize some of 
these very bright people have spent many 
hours attacking the program, and the flaws 
they found have all been fixed.” 


Internet Underground 


36 

'/JJntU 


Beating a Dead Bolt 

Mike Homer, Netscape’s vice president of mar- 
keting, likens current security measures on the 
Internet to a deadbolt lock. “It’s a good solution 
for protecting certain valuables. Now if you put a 
couple million bucks behind that door with the 
deadbolt on it, somebody’s probably going to fig- 
ure out how to get in. That’s why they have bank 
vaults. It’s important that your security matches 
the value of the information you’re protecting.” 
In other words, if you’re transmitting your cred- 
it card number, Netscape’s security should pro- 
vide plenty of protection. “But,” says Homer, 
“people aren’t passing around their Swiss bank 
account numbers, either.” 

Treuhaft continues the analogy. “You don’t 
really put a deadbolt between your kitchen and 
your bedroom. You trust if someone is going to 
be in your house, they’re not going to go into 
your sock drawer to steal your wallet. There are 
spheres of influence where you make decisions 
and manage risk and it’s an ongoing process to 
decide where to put the deadbolts, who to trust 
and how to build your network.” 

As Levine succintly put it: “You can minimize 
security breaches, but you can’t eliminate them.” 

When one stops to think about it, it seems a 
little unreasonable to expect complete security on 
the Internet, when complete security doesn’t 
exist in the physical world: Banks get robbed and 
credit card numbers get stolen. The Internet is no 
different. Just like in any business, security on the 
Internet is about assessing risk and covering the 
important bases. “You’ve got a good example in 
the security that is put on a lot of jewelry stores 
with all the alarms and cameras and that stuff,” 
says Treuhaft. “You walk into your local 
McDonald’s, you know, there’s no (apparent) 
alarms, no (apparent) cameras, and I bet there’s 
more cash flowing through a McDonald’s these 
days than flowing through jewelry stores.” 

What could make the ’net even more secure? 
Larger encryption keys along with the wide- 
spread advent of crypto programs like Pretty 
Good Privacy, would make things more comfort- 
able to anybody with security interests on the 
Web. Only one little obstacle is keeping those 
things away from users worldwide: The U.S. 
Government. 





Ahhh, Sweet Bureaucracy 

Under current government policy, strong cryptography 
is classified as a “munition” in accordance with the 
International Trade in Arms Regulations. That means 
that Pretty Good Privacy and the domestic Netscape 
Navigator are in the same league as tanks, military air- 
craft and nerve gas, at least as far as exporting them 
goes. Uncle Sam tends to frown upon private citizens 
who deal in munitions, and while you may not be able 
to send a tank via e-mail, you can easily export a three- 
line munitions system (see sidebar). 

“That’s the lasting issue in this whole over-hyped 
story” says Treuhaft. “The biggest thing we still have to 
resolve is how U.S. companies can compete against for- 
eign companies with the current export restrictions.” 
Successful cryptography relies on encryption keys. 
Basically, the larger the key, the harder it is to crack the 
encryption of a given piece of software. Today, 
Netscape is limited to exporting its product with 40-bit 
keys. Domestic versions of the browser have a 128-bit 
key, but are not available online. 

“We can’t distribute any of our strong crypto 
products via the Internet” says Treuhaft. “Not 
even our 128 -bit key domestic browser; we 
can’t distribute that to our U.S. customers via 
the Internet. We’re limited by the govern- 
ment from doing that, because if it’s on the 
Internet, anyone (outside the United 
States) can download it.” 


T ff he consensus among Web security 
mavens is that the rules themselves 
aren’t bad, just badly out of date. 

Treuhaft explains: “Three-and a- 
half years ago the (Software 
Publishers Association) and the gov- 
ernment entered into an agreement that 
basically set the 40-bit key limit that we’re 
living with today. The agreement that they 
came to also stipulated that they would 
meet on a regular basis and review that key 
size, and that’s never happened.” 

Depressingly typical bureaucracy, it would 
seem. Several companies are currently involved 
in lobbying the government to change the rules, 
but so far their efforts have resulted in very little 
success. “What we’re hoping for at this point is to set 
up an ongoing review of the export requirements” says 
Treuhaft. 

In an industry that changes as fast as the Internet, 
rules that are three years old seem archaic, just more 
proof that the ’net changes faster than governments can 
keep up. If we don’t want to get left in the dust, the 
United States needs to review these exports soon, or 
else, “it’s going to be a joke, compared to what the rest 
of the world will be able to do in terms of developing 
competitive products,” Treuhaft says. 


Another Bug Hunt 

These weren’t the first bugs and they won’t be the last 
bugs to be found in prominent Internet software. 
According to Netscape, Wagner and Goldberg’s discov- 


ery was the first time such a large problem 
was ever discovered by users, or at least no 
customers have ever come forth with a com- 
plaint. 

To bolster public confidence, Netscape is 
putting in place a series of internal and exter- 
nal reviews of their software. They also 
announced that they would now be showing 
their source code to security experts on the 
Internet. In the past, Netscape has been 
harshly criticized for refusing to let outside 
experts review their product source codes. 
Even with all the changes, they don’t expect 
to please everybody. “There’s no way for 
Netscape as a company to ever get to the 
point where 100 percent of the people out 
there think our solutions are secure enough,” 
says Treuhaft. “There will always be a group 


of people out there who think they find prob- 
lems, or feel religiously that we solved it the 
wrong way.” Treuhaft maintains that the only 
thing anyone can do for security is make the 
best possible effort to take a close look at sys- 
tem design and get a consensus from as large a 
group of experts as possible. 

Treuhaft believes that, even if Wagner and 
Goldberg had not gone public with their bug, 
Netscape would have implemented the same 
changes. “We would have, eventually. It’s hard 




WHUJ 


37 


tttitm 


O B 8 8 


December ’95 



to say we would have done it on the 
same time frame. We had some of these 
ideas in several different levels of plan- 
ning stage. The company was headed in 
that general direction.” 

After they implemented the changes, 
Netscape took a further step and began 
actively encouraging ’netheads to look 
for bugs in the beta version of Netscape 
Navigator 2.0. Releasing software for the 
purposes of informal beta testing is a tra- 
dition online, explains Treuhaft. “The 
basic thinking was, ‘people are going to 
do this anyway, so if we give them a lit- 
tle incentive, maybe they’ll do it better.’” 

Netscape Navigator 2.0 users who 
find and report serious security flaws can 
win $1,000, while lesser bugs will earn 
them a Netscape coffee mug or T-shirt, 
as part of Netscape’s Bugs Bounty con- 
test (see sidebar this section). 

Was the Bugs Bounty idea taken from 
the independent Hack Netscape contest? 



EXPORT YOUR VERY OWN MUNITIONS 



By tacking three lines of PERL code onto your e-maii 
signature file, you can strike a blow for personal priva- 
cy, make a gesture of solidarity with Phil Zimmerman, 
the inventor of Pretty Good Privacy, and possibly piss 
off the government. The lines of code, which implement 
an RSA encryption and decryption program, are free for 
.the taking at the Export-a-Crypto-System .sig site 
(http://dcs.ex.ac.uk/'aba/rsa-perl.html). 

At the site there are lots of pages devoted to stun- 
ningly incomprehensible lines of code and obsessive 
hacking to make the .sig file as small as possible: ’’...this 
was improved upon by Chris with the fiendishly clever 
s/./d*im$^inpercent/g, saves a whole 14 bytes!" 
Fortunately for the UNIX-impaired, there are also a 
number of lucid, well written pages detailing the ongo- 
ing legal struggle of cypherpunks around the world who 
want this information to be free. Strong cryptography is 
considered a munition in the United States and cryptog- 
raphy of any sort is actually illegal in France. 

The site’s stated goal is to get the U.S. government to 
examine the contradictory nature of its cryptography 
export rules, citing such examples as books on 
advanced cryptography that may be freely exported, but 
whose contents may not be exported over the Internet. 

About the .sig file? "It may be technically illegal to 
use this .sig if you are a U.S. citizen," the site warns, it is 
exceedingly unlikely that the government would actual- 
ly pursue legal action against someone who used the it, 
but the question arises because every time you send e- 
mail across U.S. borders, you export three lines of code 
that the government technically classifies as a weapon. 
Under International Trade in Arms Regulations, your 
new .sig file could earn you fines of up to $i, 000, 000 


Sameer Parekh wonders. Parekh, president of 
Community Connexion, a San Franciso-based 
Internet provider and privacy service, set up the 
Hack Netscape page. “I suppose there’s really no 
way to know, because Netscape probably wouldn’t 
admit it.” Treuhaft responds “the Bugs Bounty is 
actually something we’ve thought about for a while. 
In many cases, there are key features we wanted to 
test, and we were interested in getting quality 
testers. It seemed like incentive was a good way to 
do that. That’s not to say that we expect everyone 
of our testers to only do it if they get paid. There 
will continue to be those people who do it simply 
because they like the product.” 

Of course, it’s important to remember that none 
of these precautions mean anything to someone 
who is determined to break into systems or soft- 
ware. “There are very talented people out there” 
explains Levine, “and if you put enough computing 
power together with enough talent, any system can 
be broken. You can probably design a system that’s 
almost unbreakable, but only almost.” 

The problems of Internet security seem clear 
enough, but what are some of the solutions? The 
government may eventually get around to raising 
key sizes, but vital information has to go over the 
’net before then. One potential solution can be 
found in the example of QVC or other home shop- 
ping channels. Users of those services are given a 
personal ID number to use in transactions, elimi- 
nating the exchange of credit card numbers alto- 
gether. “Credit card transactions have proven 
effective in other areas,” says Levine. “If they 
are unworkable on the ’net, other solutions will 
be found.” Electronic cash, a system were con- 
sumers would pre-pay in order to have an online 
credit line, is another alternative; some say it will 
be the ether’s killer app, but is still too undevel- 
oped now to be anything more than a novelty. 

Any cypherpunk worth the name would say the 
solution is to use Pretty Good Privacy or some other 
type of personal encryption technology, but this 
technology is still in a legal gray area. Phil 
Zimmerman, the inventor of Pretty Good Privacy, 
faces indictment from the U.S. Department of 
Justice for giving his software away to netters out- 
side the United States. For more detailed informa- 
tion there are many privacy and security resources 
online. One of the best is the Electronic Frontier 
Foundation (http://www.eff.org), a non-profit civil 
liberties group working to protect privacy, freedom 
of expression and open access to the Internet. 

Like every element of cyberspace, online securi- 
ty is in the midst of dramatic change. Everyone who 
is online is part of the Internet, and that means that 
you can have a voice in deciding what the future of 
Internet security will be. Until then, change your 
password often and keep your Swiss bank account 
number to yourself. O 



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Hackers and wannabes alike 




have two chances to win cash and 
fabulous prizes by reporting bugs 
and security weaknesses in 
Netscape Navigator. Well, Okay, so 
there’s only some cash, and the 
prizes are generally coffee mugs 
and T-shirts. Hack Netscape 
(http://www.c2.org/hacknetscape) 


offers a custom “I hacked 


Netscape” T-shirt to anybody who 
can find a flaw in the browser’s 
security. Sameer Parekh runs the 
contest, which he hopes will help 
promote more rigorous security 
standards on the ’net. Parekh gets 
the award for originality: Hack 
Netscape was up and running the 


announced. 


CONTESTING CONTESTS^ 


But the newest link on the Hack 
Netscape page tells the whole 
story: “Netscape Imitates Hack 
Netscape.” Opening the link 
takes you to the Netscape 
Bugs Bounty contest 
(http://home.netscape.com). 
This is the official Netscape 


i 

> 40 

! 1 1 


T? 

— Internet Underground 


avid Wagner doesn’t have 
a publicity photo, but the 
way he and his friends are 
attracting attention, he’s going 
to need one. 

The 21 -year-old grad student is play- 
ing a pivotal role in two of the biggest 
stories to hit the Internet since CNN 
learned to spell Kevin Mitnick’s name 
correctly. 

Wagner and fellow University of 
California at Berkeley grad student Ian 
Goldberg created quite a stir in the press 
in late September when they discovered 
and widely publicized a significant secu- 
rity flaw in Netscape’s Web browser. 
They were in the news again in mid- 
October when they brought to light 
another security flaw, this time in the 
basic structure of the Internet. The flaw, 
well known to Internet security experts, 
earned the pair their second New York 
Times front-page story in three weeks. 

IU recently talked to Wagner about 
cryptography, his part in the cracking of 
Netscape’s browser security, working 
under looming deadlines and life after 
college. 

The day after the first security break 
was announced, Sameer Parekh put up 
the Hack Netscape page (see sidebar), 
which detailed Wagner’s and Goldberg’s 
hack and praised them loudly as cypher- 
punks doing good work. But are they 
really cypherpunks? “Ian is more of a 
solid cypherpunk. I’m kind of a fringe 
cypherpunk...but it would be nice if 
companies that said 
their stuff was secure 
actually was secure.” 

What’s a nice 
computer science 
student doing getting 
involved with all 
this crypto stuff, any- 
way? “I started our 
interested mainly in 
mathematics, com- 
puter science and 
also civil liberties to 
some extent. Soon I 
drifted into comput- 
er security,” he says, 

“Since cryptography 
is a common tool to 
use in computer 
security, I guess it 
shouldn’t be surpris- 
ing that from there I happened to find 
cryptography and loved it.” 

From there, it was a short trip to the 
front page of the Times. “A month before 
this whole brouhaha started, people 


were wondering what random number 
generator Netscape was using and Ian 
had taken a look at it and disassembled 
it, then sort of reverse engineered how it 
worked and posted that to cypherpunks 
(the newsgroup alt.cypherpunks) and 
had some discussion about it.” 

After seeing Ian’s work online, Wagner 
had no idea that fate would bring them 
together. “About a week before we dis- 
covered the flaw, I was looking at their 
randomness code separately, without 
knowing about Ian being here or any- 
thing. It turned out we were both first- 
year grad students, who were in the same 
office, sitting almost next to each other, 
looking at exactly the same problem and 
we didn’t even know it. So we sat down 
and said, ‘Hey, let’s compare notes.’ He 
told me what he had done, and I was 
telling him about what I was looking at. 

“He got interested, starting to look 
more carefully at it. I was looking at 
it from a different point of view than 
Ian, from some application notes that 
Netscape had released, so I kind of had a 
specific area I was interested in looking 
at. So we dove right in. Ian did a lot of 
disassembly, since he knew what he was 
doing there. It helped to have two dif- 
ferent people working on it with differ- 
ent abilities.” 

The last few months have seen sever- 
al developments in the cryptopunk 
world. In August, senior cypherpunk Hal 
Finney issued a challenge to the Internet 
community at large to decrypt a “secure” 

message he had 
made using an 
export version of 
Netscape’s browser 
(because U.S. law 
puts strong cryp- 
tography in the 
same category as 
munitions, export 
versions of security 
software are weak- 
er than domestic). 
Two separate teams 
of people broke the 
message in about 
two weeks. A sec- 
ond challenge was 
then issued, which 
was broken in 31 
hours by a concert- 
ed effort of about a 
hundred different people online. 

The next big story was Wagner and 
Goldberg’s Netscape discovery. Acting 
on a hunch, the pair discovered a flawed 
random number generator that was not 
quite random enough. 


David Wagner: A hacker and proud of it 





“It took some time to figure out how 
Netscape was generating their random 
numbers, because we had to translate the 
machine code. So there was maybe a day 



ian Goldberg, Wagner’s partner in "crime” 


figuring out what they did and how they 
did it. Then, once we kinda had reverse 
engineered that part, we said ‘uh-oh.’ We 
could look at it and say ‘I think this is 
pretty bad.’ So we spent another day or 
two writing a program to actually 
exploit the weakness, to make sure that 
we weren’t missing something, to make 
sure there really was a weakness.” 

With their new software, Wagner and 
Goldberg hacked the Netscape browser 
in 25 seconds. They had the ability to 
freely decrypt any “secure” documents 
read or generated by the browser. 
Wagner confirms that sloppy program- 
ming at Netscape allowed them to break 
the cryptography so quickly. 

“It was surprising that it was that 
fast,” he said. “Well, in a sense it was sur- 
prising. I mean, the problem in seeding 
the random number is one that lots of 
people have gotten wrong in the past. 

“There’s a well-known rule of thumb 
among cryptography people that this is 
something you have to do right and be 
very careful about. It’s a known weak- 
ness. That’s why I was looking at it: to 
see whether they knew that rule of 
thumb.” 

Obviously, someone at Netscape was- 
n’t familiar with that particular rule, or 
they missed it that day. Wagner under- 
stands. “From experience, it’s very easy 
(to make this kind of mistake). When 
you’re working on a large program, 
under big deadlines, with complicated 
stuff, you’re all absorbed in what you’re 
doing. You see the trees and miss the for- 
est. It’s almost unavoidable, it’s human 



nature. Really, the only way to get 
around it is have other people, indepen- 
dent of you, take a look at it. They’ll be 
looking at different things and have a 
different mind set. After you’ve spent a 
month working on something you say, 
‘Oh, I know this is perfect, I know exact- 
ly how it works and I wrote it.’ You 
become very confident and it is easy to 
make mistakes.” It’s interesting to note 
that Netscape has now implemented 
widespread changes in their code check- 
ing and software quality assurance, 
including releasing their source code to 
security experts on the Internet. 

Fortunately for Netscape, Wagner and 
Goldberg didn’t go on a credit card 
number-lifting binge. Instead, they 
immediately publicized the news. 
“Posting it to alt.cypherpunk was kind of 
our way of showing it to a community 
of people who we knew would want 
to see it.” 

If Wagner and Goldberg were rela- 
tively blase, the announcement came as a 
bombshell to many. “The day after we 
posted it to alt.cypherpunks, it got on 
the front page of The New York Times , 
and the next day everyone else saw it 
and it exploded,” Wagner says the result- 
ing press attention caught them com- 
pletely by surprise. “We had no idea. It 
was totally unexpected. There was a lot 
of response the first couple of days.” 

Netscape moved quickly. The original 
posting was on a Sunday. By Wednesday, 
Netscape released a patch that fixed the 
random number seed. “Oh, yeah. 
Somebody there was burning the mid- 
night oil,” Wagner says with a laugh. 
“I’ve got a lot of sympathy for the poor 
guy who had to fix it in two days, with 
all that publicity, and people saying, 
‘Make sure you get it right this time!”’ 

Even though hacking into the best- 
known software in cyberspace and publi- 
cizing a heretofore obscure security gap 
on the Internet will look good on a 
resume, Wagner is skittish about dis- 
cussing where he might go after college. 
“Ohh, no,” he laughs again, refusing to 
consider it for long. “I’m a first year, and 
I’m trying for my Ph.D. That’s my goal 
for right now, I wanna get a Ph.D.” He 
pauses for a moment, thinking about 
what he has just said. “Yeah, wow, that’s 
enough, to decide to get a Ph.D., much 
less what I’m going to do when I get out 
of college. But probably something in 
industry or academia. Academia is prob- 
ably more like it.” 

Yeah, Bill Gates probably said the 
same thing when he was 21.0 


contest, and has less outlaw 


flavor about it than the Hack 


Netscape pages. 

Apparently, Netscape felt that free 
T-shirts weren’t enough incentive, 
and they are offering $1,000 for 
anyone who finds a serious securi- 
ty flaw in the new Netscape 2.0 
beta. Other rewards — you guessed 
it, coffee mugs and T-shirts — will 
be given to users who find other, 
less dramatic bugs. 


What does Parekh think of 


Netscape’s decision to start their 
own contest? “It is certainly a 
good thing that they are encourag- 
ing people to look for bugs and 
offering rewards for doing so. The 
end result will be a better product. 
It is interesting though that they 
are offering a limited number of 
awards for non-security bugs. They 
seem to expect a large number of 
bugs reported, more than they can 
afford to give out free mugs and 
T-shirts for. It’s probably good that 
they are at least releasing it as 
a beta before it is ready, as 
opposed to Windows95.” That 
doesn’t mean Microsoft’s safe. 
Hackers have set up a “Hack 
Win95” contest, too. -JWH 


! Ill 

! 41 ! 

\ ph jtffj! 

December ’95 






Internet Underground 




u 


By 


J Ofity 


f- 

■ his page is not enhanced for Netscape 1.2. 

(a* Have you ever wondered why 

some people online are so... strident, 
when it comes to proclaiming their 
loyalty to their favorite Web browser? 
Although it s all the same Internet 
underneath, one need spend only a lit- 
tle time on the ’net to encounter sloga- 
neering for Netscape over Mosaic, or 

Hot Java over Netscape, or all of them 
over AOL. 

r The reason lies in the fact that Web 
browsers are not so much software as 
they are ideologies. 

Seriously, what is an ideology but a way of 

S “■£*=£ it 

World AY/\a terprets r he 

gTves > ( T ldC Web > ^d 

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looks 

net ^ it is shaped Tv rh^ the 

ways we look through h d °° r ' 









December ’95 






IwST//* 




80 /Java^ 


Different flavors of browser 
have different capabilities though, 
and when you spend 20 or 30 
hours a week online, the Web and 
the browser become as one in the 
user’s mind. And just as surely as 
the word “liberal” makes Bob 
Dole twitch, some people can’t 
stand the thought that other folks 
might be seeing things differently 
from them. 

This rundown of the latest 
browsers is for the rest of us. 

NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR 2.0: 


HotJava 




: Language 


H»Ua»aC») ^ 


Lsearcl* 231 




i can 


search our on 


.tae Web pages. 


or our \ 


: afcbbej- 




The Big Dog of Web browsers 
returns with many new fea- 
tures, some of which are much 
needed improvements over 
version 1.1. 

One of the biggest changes 
is the new Netscape mail util- 
ity, which is much more com- 
prehensive than the previous 
version. It’s still not as sophis- 
ticated as say Eudora, but you 
can now check your mail 
without ever leaving the 
warmth and safety of your 
browser. You can also embed 
live hyperlinks and images 
within e-mail messages. 

Now, you also can read 
newsgroups without launch- 
ing another program. 
Previous versions of 
Navigator supported news- 
groups, but again, 2.0 
improves upon that capabili- 
ty with a complete news 
reader as part of the brows- 
er. Newsgroups are fully 
threaded (the reader can see 
and reply to all messages). 
Though it is not yet imple- 
mented in Mac or Windows 
3.1 beta releases, Netscape 
2.0 will support the Java 
programming language (see 
Hot Java, below). 

Additional features 
promise to keep Netscape 
at the top of the pile, as 
well. For example, 2.0 sup- 


ports the Progressive JPEG file 
format, which loads images up to 
three times faster than the GIF 
file format. Netscape 2.0 also 
promises to be more secure by 
implementing secure S/MIME 
protocols and offering users 
access to the VeriSign digital sig- 
nature service. For $6, users of 
2.0 will receive a digital signature 
that serves as a sort of “Internet 
driver s license for the purpose 
of sending secure messages and 
making purchases online. 

At press time, Netscape was 
slated to release the beta Netscape 
Navigator Gold in mid- 
November. The Gold version has 
all the improvements of 2.0, and 
comes with a built-in WYSIWYG 
page editor, allowing anybody 
with a copy of Netscape 
Gold to publish HTML 
documents. “Essentially, 
it puts everybody in the 
business of personal 
electronic publishing,” 
says Mike Homer, 

Netscape s vice presi- 
dent of marketing. 

What happens to the 
Internet when everyone is pub- 
lishing a Netscape HTML docu- 
ment? “Well,” answers Homer 
wistfully “We’ll sell more servers 
(laughs). No, it will change the 
way most people think about the 
Internet. People will quit looking 
at it passively, as something to be 
read, and start looking at it 
dynamically, as something to be 
created. Download the future at 
(http://home.netscape.com). 


HOT JAVA 

Hyper-loyal Hot Java users are 
probably steaming right now. 
Before, if you used Sun System’s 
Hot Java, you had to be hardcore, 
’cause it only ran on high-end 
workstations and Sun machines, or 
at least Windows NT. Now, they’ve 
gone and released a Windows 95 
compatible version, and any jerk 
with a Pentium can join the club. 
Oh well, at least they never admit- 
ted the unwashed horde of 
Windows 3.1 users, eh? 

Hot Java’s major innovation 
over Netscape Navigator is its 
recognition of Java Applets, minia- 
ture programs, written in the Java 
programming language, that will 
run on any machine. Many people 
are excited by the possibilities of 
this technology, which could be 
used to run everything from anima- 
tion to interactive games to online 
banking. Sun is planning on coming 
out with a Hot Java for Mac oper- 
ating systems, but with Netscape 
supporting Java in the new version 
of Navigator, Hot Java’s viability as 
a browser is in question. 





e 




NCSA MOSAIC 2.0 

NCSA Mosaic was the original 
browser, the first gateway through 
which most people saw the Web. 
Though it was quickly surpassed by 
its cousin, Netscape Navigator, 
Mosaic still has a loyal following 
and is still free for the downloading 
at numerous sites across the ’net. 

The latest update is almost a 
complete overhaul, with many new 
features that promise to beef up 
performance and enhance ease of 


use. To make things easier, the help 
function has active links to online 
resource files, there are multiple 
cache directories, internal support 
for .wav files, many new user- 
defined preferences and a 
Netscape-like Stop button in the 
toolbar. Many technical refine- 
ments like enhanced HTML sup- 
port and the ability to open multi- 
ple links at the same time, make 
Mosaic a more serious contender in 
the coming browser wars. 
Get yours at (http://www.ncsa. 
uiuc.edu). 


SONY CYBER PASSAGE 

Sony is the first large consumer 
electronics firm to become 
involved with Virtual Reality 
Modeling Language, a language for 
describing 3-D scenes on the World 
Wide Web. Cyber Passage is Sony’s 
VRML browser that recognizes 
VRML and Enhanced VRML 1.0 
scenes and also reads HTML. 

Navigational features include 
“Walk Through” for handling 
vague objectives, “Jumping Eye” 
information, search with a bird’s 
eye view, and a “Fly Through” 
based on automatic route setting. 
Enhanced VRML is a proprietary 
Sony innovation that can create 
interactive environments with spo- 
radic and periodic events that affect 
the user. Also possible are 
autonomously moving objects, 
atmospheric sounds that give the 
feeling of actually being in a scene 
and moving images that can maybe 
be acted on as objects. 

Cyber Passage is still in the 
Coming Soon phase, but more 
information is available from 
Info_CyberPsg@sony.com. 



Virtual Reality Mod 

E Extensions 
Vser Extensions 

ion and Behavior 


TRADEWAVE MACWEB 

MacWeb is a Macintosh specific 
Web browser developed by the 
TradeWave corporation. It has 
many of the features that users 



take for granted in Web 
browsers, plus multiple prefer 
ence files, so that one browser 
can support several different 
users. 

MacWeb requires System 7 or 
later, and is PowerMac native. 
TradeWave says that MacWeb 
requires less memory than 
almost all other Internet naviga- 
tors and will run on a wider 
range of hardware. The evalua 
tion version of MacWeb is avail- 
able at (ftp://ftp.einet.net/einet/ 

mac/macweb/macweb.latest. 

sea.hqx). 

CELLO 

Cello could be called the poor 
man’s Web browser, but that is 
unfair. The browser supports 
HTML, FTP, Gopher and Usenet 
newsgroups natively, and can 
plug in helper applications to 
handle other forms of informa- 
tion. Cello is useful to users who 
have less than optimal comput- 
ing solutions. As the Cello home 
page notes, it will run on a 
386SX-16 with as little as 2 megs 
of RAM, though “you’ll like it 
better on a faster system with 
more RAM.” 

Cello was developed by 
Thomas R. Bruce at Cornell Law 
School. You can download ver- 
sion 1.1 at (http://www.law.cor- 
nell.edu/cello/ cellotop.html) . 

MICROSOFT INTERNET 

EXPLORER 

Developed specifically for use 
with Win 95, the Internet 
Explorer works either through 
the Microsoft Network or 
through a separate TCP/IP stack 
like Trumpet Winsock. 

MIE is an ambitious piece of 
software, designed to be highly 
competitive in the browser mar- 
ket. Could we expect any less 
from Microsoft? MIE contains a 



complete mail utility, supports back- 
ground sound and inline video streams 
and drag-and-drop features. When 
users are on a page they want to save, 
they simply drag a status icon onto the 
desktop to create a shortcut to that 
page. 

Microsoft will release a VRML 
browser later this year, and Internet 
Explorer will display and browse 
VRML images using this browser as a 
helper app. Obvious benefits of using 
MIE include support by Microsoft, 
extensive ease of use and online help. 
Windows 95 users (and anyone else) 
can download a copy of MIE at 
(http://www.microsoft.eom/windows/i 
e/iexplorer.htm). 

You don’t have to limit yourself to 
one way of looking at things. All 
knowledge is not contained within the 



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browser, and who knows what you 
might see if you tried out a couple of 
new and different Web navigation 
programs? 

One place to start investigating 
other Web browsers is the 
City.net Browser Checkup Page 
(http://www.city.net/checkup.cgi). 
Besides investigating your browser 
software and alerting you if a newer 
version exists, City.net has links to 
almost two dozen other Web 
browsers. 

The Internet is a big place. Explore 
it joyfully, but remember to stop and 
take time to smell the browsers. O 


L, 

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45 

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December ’95 














nee, in a forgotten time, “cool” meant chilly. No more. A recent Webcrawler search brought up 10,894 references to “cool sites.” One of 
the first places a new user visits will likely be the many links highlighting Web sites as cool, now that most online services list these links 
in their own lists of top sites. But as the Web has expanded, these arbiters have not always been satisfied to simply deem what is cool. 
Sites have popped up defining the useless, the mediocre or the geeky. One Harvard University graduate even decided that with all the 
interest in finding good sites, it seemed necessary to highlight the worst. We decided to find out the stones behind these sites and how 
these lists are compiled. But more importantly, we wanted to know: 


D> Who 


Cool Site of the Day 

http://cooLinfj.net 

Glenn Davis was once a lonely recluse who 

collected tolls on an interstate turnpike. Now, he’s 
an online celebrity, with a Web site that attracts 
more than 40,000 hits daily. He sorts through more 
than 200 e-mails every afternoon, most from people 
asking him to just look at their Web sites. A few even 
tTy to bribe him. 

“The best was from a couple. This guy said he 
would have the Cool Site of the Day logo tattooed 
on his wife’s buttocks.” 

Davis jokes that he literally fell into the job from 
which he started Cool Site of the Day. He had tripped 


Glenn Davis, Cool Site of the Day 



"Ninety percent of the uueb is pure : R TC C. 

Part of the reason is that it's EASY. . . 
It's the same may eueryone can paint, 

but not eueryone paints WELL." 


and sprained his ankle, which forced 
him to miss a lot of time from his job 
as a foreman in a factory in Norfolk, 

Va. Stuck at home, bored and lone- 
ly, he heard about a company that 
offered ’net hook-ups. 

“1 called them up and said ‘How 
much is it?”’ Within an hour, he 
hobbled in with his foot in a cast 
and slapped a check for $144 into 
the palm of an office worker for one 
year’s worth of access. 

With not much else to do, Davis 
started hanging out in his access 
provider’s office. So much, they finally just hired 
him. He ran a bulletin board service and worked 

as a systems administrator, 
spending his spare time poking 
around the Web as it evolved. 




^Internet Underground 


Davis developed a hobby of finding 
sites he liked, and started showing 
them to other people in the office. 
One day last August, he mentioned 
setting up a site to direct people to 
his links. His boss put him to work 



O 


on it the next day. 

“At first, it was hard to find 
sites,” Davis says. “There were peo- 
ple who told me that 1 wouldn’t 
last a month.” In the beginning, he 
had just a handful of hits. Then 
200. Then 400. Now, more than 
40,000 users hit Cool Site of 
the Day (CSotD for short). 
Even the early sites he chose 
pale to today’s, largely due 
to Netscape and the 
advances it allows HTML 
programmers. 

Davis chose “cool” after 
mulling over a number of 
other adjectives. “Great” 
didn’t seem quite right; 
“neat” was just too geeky. 
Cool, he decided, seemed univer- 
sally understood. “Every English 
speaking person understands the 
world ‘cool,’ 1 really believe that.” 
Now the word plagues him. Not 
only does it seem the most overly 
used descriptive piece of lan- 
guage used throughout the ’net, 
he feels out of place using it 
describe anything else, including 
himself. “Eor years, 1 was veiy 
withdrawn. At parties, 1 would sit 
back in the corner. Now 1 don’t 
do that. 1 go out, 1 talk to 
strangers. 

“1 had no idea Cool Site of the 
Day would take off like it would. 
But 1 have more self-confidence 
now. Sometimes, I’m downright 







arrogant. But 1 have friends who 1 
have given pins to puncture my 
head if 1 get too bad. I’m not as bad 
as 1 used to be.” 

He says that at least he does not 
list a litany of lengthy 
book-jacket-like endorse- 
ments on his site. Bob 
Alison, who runs the 
Spider’s Picks, requires 
viewers to scroll down a 
full screen of such back- 
pats before getting to his 
lists. (Alison declined our 
requests for a phone inter- 
view.) 

Davis now does most 
of his work from his effi- 
ciency apartment, rather than in the 
cubicle at lnfinet. At home, he’s 
surrounded by a Spider lVIan doll, a 
7-Up Spot character (which he 
poses when he gets bored) and a 
pewter wizard holding a crystal ball. 
His computer sits amid piles of 
messy papers, mostly notes with 
unidentified phone numbers on 
them. 

He has two screens for his lVIac, 
one so that he can cull through his 
daily e-mail while he waits for sites 
to load up on. the other. He reads 
all his e-mail, he says, even if he 
doesn’t answer it. About half of the 
e-mail requests for site visits he 
receives come from women now. 

“What makes a site cool? If you 
read my FAQ, 1 look at content, 
style graphics and personality. If it 
has something over the others, after 
1 look at all those, 1 look at 
whether it’s cool or not. 

There’s no science, it’s just 
my editorial judgment.” 

Davis usually knows 
within a few minutes if a 
sight is “cool” or not. Most 
of the time, he just mutters “ugh” 
and moves on. “Minety percent of 
the Web is pure dreck,” he says. 
“Part of the reason is that it’s easy. 
Sure, everyone can do it, but not 
everyone can do it well. It’s the 
same way everyone can paint, but 
not everyone paints well. This is a 
new medium. People are 
exposed to tools they never 
had before.” Davis believes 
his success can be measured 


by the numbers of servers he routinely crashes. In 
the ’net world, recognition can be a dicey thing. 
One site, a crime scene investigation, received 
more than 100,000 hits the day it was mentioned 
CSotD. The site’s creator, Tom Arriola, 


in 


was 


"I want people to feel like they aren't SAFE, 
m hoping that knowing they could 

be singled out will SCARE people into 
waking their pages BETTER. 


n 


there’s plenty of bad stuff, just not all of it 
seems funny. He tries to find the most obscure 
sites possible by digging deep into personal 
directories or scanning entire lists of service 
providers. 

“1 guess 1 have a particular 
resentment for Cool Site of the 
Day. 1 personally feel like 1 have 
to respond to all the mail 1 can 
get. People send me nomina- 
tions for WOW, but 1 have to 
know what people are thinking 
about my site. 1 don’t really 
think Cool Site of the Day is 
providing anything special. If 
anything, it just helped bas- 


promptly kicked off his server. 

“Sometimes that happens,” 

Davis conceded. “There’s a company in New York 
called Interport. 1 can’t feature any of their clients’ 
pages because they won’t let me. I’ll crash their 
servers,” he says. “Does it make me feel bad? 
Sometimes, yeah. If my featuring a sight causes them to 
lose their ability to publish on the Web it does. 1 actually 
enjoy crashing a server, though. It just says, ‘Hey, I’m 
showing this stuff to people.’ That’s what 1 want to do. 1 
really enjoy discovering the little guy who worked hard on 
his page and deserves the recognition.” 


Mirksy of his Worst of the Web site 


Worst of the Web 

http://mjrsky.turnpike.net/iuoiu/lllorst.htinl 

On the flip side of Glenn Davis, there’s Mirsky, a 

Harvard University graduate who puts together the 
daily Worst of Web. Mirksy, who goes only by one 
name for “professional reasons,” started Worst on 
the Web about a year ago, in direct response to the Cool 
Site of the Day and other lists like it. To him, it seemed like 
everyone with a Web site had their own set of “cool” links. 
So why not one with the worst? 

“1 consider myself a humor writer,” Mirsky says. “1 tried 
to do free-lance humor writing on TV. 1 started 
thinking that maybe 1 could do some humor for 
companies on-line.” So he started spending time 
browsing the Web. “When you start using it, it’s 
exciting, you get excited over everything. But then 
you become more savvy and start to realize that 
there’s a lot of bad stuff too.” 

He wasn’t sure if he would have enough materi- 
al to keep up the site every day. Now he finds, 


tardize the word ‘cool.’” Mirsky says he’s e- 
mailed Davis, but never received any sort of a 
response. 

Mirksy doesn’t just put up bad sites, 
he picks up sites that are incomplete, 
done with questionable taste or lack 
thought before execution. In a sense, he 
polices the Web, pointing out things 
that are interesting, funny and some- 
times, ought not to be there. Something 
that bothers him is the sheer volume of self- 
indulgence manifesting itself on the Web. 

“1 want people to feel like they aren’t safe. 
I’m hoping that knowing they could be singled 
out will scare people a little bit into making 
their pages better.” The greatest trespasses are 
by those people who put pages online before 
completing them. The landscape of incomplete 
or poorly executed sites lends the Web its ama- 
teurish quality. It makes the Web look shoddy. 
People really need to develop their stuff off- 
line first.” 

Even with the exponential increase in the 
number of pages, Mirsky can’t always find bad 
pages. Well, he can find just plain bad pages, 
but not pages that are humorous also. The for- 
mer Harvard Lampoon writer searches the Web 
(he disdains the word “surfing”) in the bedroom 
of his parents’ home in suburban Boston. Each 
morning, he climbs down from the top bunk 
bed, the safety rail still attached, to the wall 
where his two robes hang at the ready, one 
heavy duty, the other lightweight. 


are 






December ’95 



“A/lost days, 1 don’t even get 
dressed. 1 sit in my bathrobe. 1 stand 
there in my underwear, determining 
which one I’ll need that day.” 
Sometimes, he’ll surf for hours and 
not come up with anything suitable 
for his site. Searching the Web seems 
tiring to him now. He says he’s not 
getting paid much from Volant, a San 
Diego-based service provider, to put 
together Worst on the Web. He’s 
hoping to include some sponsorship 
soon. At least it lets him stay away 
from his series of bad day jobs. 

“The worst job 1 ever had was to 
photocopy this 400-page manual on 
a regular copier. Another was when 1 
had to type in a list of all the doctors 
in Germany. Those kinds of jobs 
helped me in a way. 1 learned to work 
fast and type quickly and get used to 
doing nothing for an hour or two. 
That’s what searching on the Web is 
sort of like.” 

As you read this article, Mirksy is 
probably at it now, typing away on 
his Macintosh LC 111, listening to 
some Duke Ellington. 

“It’s hard to know 
what’s the best use of 
my time now. There 
are certain subjects that 1 haven’t 
even explored. Someone asked me 
whether 1 did anything on financial 
pages. 1 started trying to look at 
some, but they are so boring. But the 
searching, 1 like the searching. It’s 
satisfying when 1 find something no 
one else has found and it’s really 
bad.” 


Mediocre Site 
of the Day 

http://pantheoii.cis.yale.eda/-jharris 

Only a finite number of Web sites 

can truly be deemed “cool” or con- 
versely “useless.” So what of those 
simply average Web sites that neither 
excite nor repulse-that middle 98 
percent that Mixon might have 
dubbed, “the Web’s silent majority?” 
Those sites fall into the territory of 
Jensen Harris, a 19-year-old sopho- 
more majoring in music at Yale 
University and the Web’s official 
judge of mediocrity. Since its launch 
last April, Harris’ “Mediocre Site of 


the Day” has steadily built a fol- 
lowing. Ham's estimates his page 
attracts 600 to 800 visitors a day. 

“1 figured mediocrity could be 
something the American main- 
stream would tend to identify 
with,” Ham's says. He spends 
about an hour a day on the ’net 
in his cluttered residence hall 
bedroom. “1 tend to organize 
vertically in piles,” Harris says of 
his workspace which doubles as a 
music studio. “I’m messy, but it’s 
not like 1 have tacos on the key- 
board.” Computers are just a 
hobby for Ham's, who aspires to 



be a composer, conductor and 
music teacher. 

Finding mediocrity is hardly 
a science. Harris receives 25 to 
30 suggestions per day, but gen- 
erally finds sites himself by typ- 
ing random words into search 
engines and seeing where they 
lead him. 

Ham's says most people don’t 
seem to mind having their sites 
deemed mediocre, but he admits 
he’s more choosy now about 
whom he sends official notifica- 
tions. Once he picked a natural 
underwater child-birth site. The 
site’s creator promptly e-mailed 
Harris back, calling him the 
“Insensitive Male of the Day.” 

With the growth of the 
Web, Ham's says he doesn’t feel 
like he’s in a competition with 
other Web arbiters. “There’s no 
shortage of mediocrity out 
there,” he says. 

Ham's enjoys his work as the 
gatekeeper of the so-so and the 
notoriety that comes with it. He 
vows he will continue to high- 
light mediocrity as long as the 
interest is there. Judging by sales 
of the latest Michael Bolton 
CD, Hams should be at it for 
some time. 




rbiters Amok! 

Everybody's getting into the act! Fickle Web 
arbiters are popping up faster than Kenny 
Rogers' Roasters franchises along the inter- 
state. Here are 20 more: 


Cool Pet Site of the Day 

http://www.acmepet.com/common/cool_pet.html 

Political Site of the Day 
http://ross.clendon.com/ 

Funky Site of the Day 

http://www.realitycom.com/cybstars/index.html 

Humor Site of the (Every Other) Day 
http://bird.taponline.com/yourmom/HSotEOD.html 

Mexico Cool Site of the Day 
http://dch.mty.itesm.mx/cool/ 

Cool Science Site of the Day 
http://abalone.phys.cwru.edu/~aharey/coolsci/ 

The Unusual or Deep Site of the Day 
http://vvv.com:80/adsint/freehand/deepsite 

Advertising Site of the Day 
http://www.xplore.com/adsiteoftheday/home.html 

Dynamite Site of the Nite 
http://www.vpm.com/tti/dsotn.html 

Short Attention Span Site 
http://www.islandnet.com/~cwalker/sass.html 

Hot Site of the Nite 

http://www.euro.net/5thworld/hotnite.html 

Legal Hotlink of the Week 
http://www.ionet.net/~mdyer/lhotlink.shtml 

Rock Site of the Day 
http://www.xmission.com/~verve/rock/ 

Cool Globe of the Week 
http://www.duke.edu/~nrm/globe/ 

Cool Medical Site of the Week 
http://www.hooked.net/users/wcd/cmsotw.html 

Sponsored Site of the Day 
http://www.cris.com/~raydaly/sponsors.shtml 

Literary Site of the Day 

http://www.interlog.com/~ohi/inkspot/site.html 
Wave of the Day 

http://www.marketsquare.com:80/wave/index.html 
Seeress of the Web 

http://www.cyberzine.com/seeress/vision.html 

And if you're looking for even more sites of the 
day/week/nite/whatever, be sure to check out Mart's 
Meta Pick, a site that catalogs and links to most of 
the above sites and believe it or not, lists a whole 
lot more. 

http://www.euro.net/5thworld/metapick/index.html 


Jj Internet Underground 


‘ ■ i 




© 1995 UBI SOFT ENTERTAINMENT, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THE PLAYSTATION LOGO AND PLAYSTATION ARE TRADEMARKS OF SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT INC. SEGA SATURN IS A TRADEMARK OF SEGA 

ENTERPRISE LTD. ATARI, THE ATARI LOGO AND JAGUAR ARE TRADEMARKS OR REGISTERED TRADEMARKS OF ATARI CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 






The Point 

http://uiiw.pointcom.coni 

Frequent surfers will recognize the 

symbol from one of the largest arbiters 
of cool, The Point. The Portland, Ore., 
company selects, on an admittedly 
subjective basis, the top 5 percent of 
Web sites. The Point, which receives 
upward of 200,000 hits a day, employs 
a full-time staff whose mission in life is 
to scour the Web for sites worthy of 
recognition. Compiling selections from 


Ryan Holznagel of The Point 


erate a unique tone, a unique world.” The Point rates not 
only commercial sites but personal home pages as well, 
selecting on the grounds of content, presentation and 
experience, similar to a restaurant guide’s ratings on food, 
decor and service. Holznagel tries to look beyond the ini- 
tial graphical impression for a deeper, more indi- 
vidual flavor. “Complicated or fancy isn’t neces- 
sarily better. 1 like the feeling that I’m hearing 
from a strong, clear voice.” 

Having a base in Oregon has its advantages. 

After spending 10 hours on the Web, Holznagel 
can simply poke his head out of his Union 
Station office window to watch antique trains roll by or 
simply escape to “the forests, rain and physical reality” 
nearby. A decade spent around entertainment and 

computers offered Holznagel 
a sense of self-awareness 


1 5 employees obviously 
leads to great variation in 
what’s deemed cool; 
though the Point doesn’t 
rate porno sites, just 
about everything else is 
fair game. The final say 
comes down from editor 
Ryan Holznagel, a former 
scriptwriter who strongly 
believes that coolness on 
the Web is determined 
not by outside arbiters, 
but by the unique visions of page 
designers. 

“It would be hard to be an arbiter 
cool on the Web,” explained 


"It mould be hard to be an arbiter 

of COOL on the QJeb since 
one of the key PLEASURES for 

most users is being the ADMIRAL 
of their ouun expedition." 


of 


Holznagel, “since one of the key plea- 
sures for most users is being the admiral of 
their own expedition. What we tTy to do is 
point out interesting ports of call.” Holznagel 
considers his background “appropriately 
eclectic” for the kind of work into which he’s 
fallen. Having first learned BASIC in 
1978 on a Commodore Pet, Holznagel 
gave up programming to study history 
at Willamette University in Oregon, 
then moved on to work in film and 
video. After a stint as story supervisor 
for the Saturday morning California 
Raisin Show, Holznagel won a 1992 
Emmy for scripting A Claymation 
Easter. Though the gritty world of 
children’s programming continued to 
beckon, Holznagel decided to move 
onto greener, or at least less trodden, 
pastures: multimedia and computers. 

“The Web is perhaps the most indi- 
vidual and personal mass medium we 
have right now and the best sites gen- 


about his job; most of the staid, egotistic seriousness of 
many Web arbiters seems missing from Holznagel’s per- 
sona. He even speaks with humor about the effect of 
the Point on his social life: “Whenever I’m on a date 
now, just about every single topic of conversa- 
tion makes me want to say, ‘You know, that 
reminds me of something 1 just saw on the 
Web...’ 1 think that gets old after a while — for 
my dates, anyway.” 


useless-ed out” says Phillips, who was 
getting more than 100 suggestions 
every day. 

One of those suggestions was from 
Steve Berlin, a longtime fan of the 
Useless Pages, who at the time was 
working in an office that he described as a “vir- 
tual Dilbert strip.” Berlin, whose T-shirt collec- 
tion was one of Phillips’ first useless sites, 
noticed the pages had not been updated. He e- 
mailed Phillips and volunteered to take over, an 
offer Phillips gladly accepted. 

Although the site may be called “use- 
less” it’s been anything but for Berlin, a 
33-year-old Bay Area resident who par- 
layed his quest for the vain into a 
full-time job at Yahoo. Checking out 
newly submitted sites for a liv- 
ing helps Berlin find plenty of 
useless sites. He also surfs for 
over an hour a day in a clut- 
tered workspace just outside 
San Francisco. 

Both Phillips and Berlin say 
that most people enjoy having 
their sites included on the 
Useless Pages. Phillips says the 
only person who ever got upset 
was a guy who published an 
entire site in Gaelic, who then 
pointed out he had a right to 
publish a site in his own native 
tongue on the World Wide Web. 

Phillips hasn’t completely forsaken 
his page, checking in from time to time 
as “Useless Emeritus.” For now, his 
agenda is filled with more purposeful 
pursuits like designing Boa, his 
own Web browser, and writing a game 
for Java. 



Useless Site of the Day 

http://uuuj hi. pritniis.com/staff/paQlp/useless.htTnl 

There’s no shortage of sites on the Web that seem- 
ingly serve no purpose. This axiom is evident to anyone 
who has spent more than 10 minutes on the ’net, but 
it took Paul Phillips to corral all those purposeless sites 
into the aptly titled Useless Pages. 

It all started when Phillips, a 23-year-old student 
at the University of California at San Diego and self- 
confessed “computer nerd,” was doing some late-night 
surfing and stumbled upon someone’s CD collection. 
Phillips at the time was working for Primus, an Internet 
technology services company. When he posted his 
finding on a Usenet group, others instantly barraged 
him with pointers to other sites that were just as, well, 
useless. “1 discovered a whole undercurrent of desire to 
point this kind of thing out,” Phillips says. 

The site took off, but all that banality took a toll. 
Last spring, Phillips’ enthusiasm lagged. “1 just got so 


Geek Site of the Day 

http://riceinfo.ric0.edu/-iiKligo/gsotd 

It’s only natural. After all, the ’net 

was set up by all those Defense 
Department and scientific types. 

So there remain plenty of sites 
devoted to polyhedrons, ham radio, 
prime numbers, Atari systems, slide 
rules and radiation experiments. 
They’re all sniffed out by Scott 
Ruthfield, a junior in computer science 
at Rice University in Houston. Ruthfield 
maintains “Geek Site of the Day” pure- 
ly for his own pleasure and that of other 
geeks, a surprisingly large and loyal fol- 
lowing of folk amused by Hewlett- 
Packard calculators, Scooby-Doo and 
ASCII art. 


Internet Underground 



Ruthfield has no firm criteria for 
what makes a site properly geeky. He 
resists rules in general: “I’d be tempted 
to break ’em.” He feels that people who 
judge and present cool sites too often 
claim responsibility for the quality of the 
Web. Scott feels that they only provide a 
service. The people who put up content 
are the real heroes. 

Scott tries to get all the sites 
for a week done in one session, 
when he surfs on his personal 
computer, a 486 661VIHz. Scott 
receives five to 10 e-mails eveiy 
day. They fall into two camps, 
people trying to sell things to him 
and letters complimenting the site 
and nominating other geek sites. 

Reflecting upon the growing 
popularity of nerds, Scott says, 
“Geekiness is a cool 
little trend, in the 
same way that roller 
derby was trendy; 
most people find it interesting to gawk 
at but would never actually want to 
participate.” 


“Although 1 don’t 
have a monopoly on 
defining it, 1 think 1 must 
classify myself as a geek.” 
He thinks that it’s tricky 
to classify what is geeky, 
since the word has 
become a kind of compli- 



"Geekiness is a COOL little trend, 
in the same may that ROLLER DERBY 
mas trendy. Host people find it interesting 
to gamk at but mould NEVER 

actually mant to participate." 


Scott Ruthfield of Geek Site of the Day 


ment. We asked Scott if he wore tape-mended eye- 
glasses, but he has perfect vision, boldly shattering a 
pervasive geek stereotype. He wears raggedy T-shirts 
and shorts for the most part and 90 percent of what 


he wears is Rice-oriented. “You 
know, like Rice blood-drive shirts. 
That’s the only reason to give 
blood, isn’t it? To get the shirt?” 

Ruthfield files by the “pile sys- 
tem,” and friends using his com- 
puter are warned not to disturb the 
towering stacks of paper. The rest 
of his room is littered 
with mementos from 
his debate trips, a 
plastic crab stolen 
from a hotel in retri- 
bution for a particu- 
larly bad breakfast 
and a “cool chair 
which looks like it 
was ripped out of an 
airplane, but it was- 
n’t. We don’t know 

where it came from. It 

leans all the way back 
and kind of rocks back and forth.” His 
roommate previously won an award for 
“cleanest room of the year”; Ruthfield 
says with a chuckle. “Then he got stuck 
with me.” O 



Who 




do we think 



? 


are, anyway t 


taggeringly knowledgeable of both Internet history and myth, the editors of 
the Internet Underground recently underwent a grueling six-week boot camp 
involving 10 to 12 hours each day of unadulterated surfing. IU uses only 
the most technical methods to celebrate the world of the Internet. Our rea- 
soning: A creation as well organized and devoid of fluff as cyberspace must 
be studied with intense scientific care and precision. Each site is laborious- 
ly inspected by the staff before it's logged into the Big Board, a massive 
hunk of organizational splendor that towers above our spacious offices dec- 
orated in glorious sanitary white. 



(Actually, we're just like all other Internet surfers with one notable exception. All of us used to tool 
across the Web as a hobby, now we do it for a living. We developed our knowledge of the 'net the same 
way everyone else has gathered it, by spending a hell of a lot of time procrastinating. Collectively, our 
greatest brush with Internet greatness was experienced by assistant editor Sarah Ellerman. She lived in 
Champaign, III., as an undergraduate of the University of Illinois during the genesis of the Web brows- 
er Mosaic. Physically, the closest she got to the project was sitting outside the National Center for 
Supercomputing Applications eating Jamocha Almond Fudge ice cream. She once dated a guy that 
worked at NCSA, but he had nothing to do with Mosaic. He was kind of a dork anyway, she says.) 


Also in this article: IU’s definitive 
and exclusive “how to” tips on 
the construction of a magazine 
article. Follow the numbers to 
our handy guide on page 57. 




fig. 5 

BY 



fig. 3 

Things Jesus Wants You to Know. Cannibis Canada. 
Eyeball Orgasm. Gerbil - A Queer Culture Zine. 

Mutual Funds Magazine. 



Browse any online newsstand and you’ll find rows 
of titles like the ones listed above, evidence that 
electronic printing presses are working overtime, 
with an unusual group of people steering — 
or rather rocking — the digital publishing world. 


Young publishers have been putting together e-zines 
(electronic magazines) since the late ’70s. Back then, 
the ’zines were limited to ASCII format, type and 
the occasional picture put together with a clever 
combination of )* ^ #s. Two years ago, there were 
perhaps a couple of dozen, but now with the advent 
of the Web, and consequently the ability to include 
graphics with text in a format accomplished with a 

relatively low learning curve and low cost, the fig. 4 
world of e-zines has exploded. It’s difficult to deter- 
mine how many ’zines hang out on the ether. A 
Gopher List at gopher://gopher.etext.org/ll/Zines 
catalogs more than 600, from the John Denver 
Internet Fan Club to Fondle.My. Balls. 

A second list of e-zines maintained by John Labovitz 
at http://www.meer.net/~johnl/e-zine-list/index.html 
shows that the market is clearly dominated by com- 
puter/Internet, fiction, popular culture, sports and 
music e-zines. A second tier, in terms of numbers, 
includes science fiction, politics and the environ- 
ment. Despite the hype about cyberporn, few 
’zines are devoted exclusively to erotica or porn. 


So who’s publishing all this stuff? Internet 
Underground surveyed 50 editors via e-mail 
to get a sense of what kind of people 



raqac@N£pui 


pgp 




S V:C>;.N. 


Mb* 








sssiii 

........ .t 


Avoid using large quantities 
of white text knocked out 
of black, as it is difficult to 
read and hard to track from 
line to line. 


II p were publishing online, whether they felt they had to fight for wl 
JJ legitimacy compared to the dead tree variety, and that sort Mi 
Jjj of thing. 

We were lucky enough to have most of the ’zinc editors M 
I respond to our survey, most within 48 hours. Hey, whoever 'pAr 
■B said computer geeks don't have a life? 

Although our questionnaire was hardly scientific, it offers !► 4 
F^a glimpse at the demographics of the e-zine editors. More f * 
| than half are in their 20s or younger; 1 1 are college 
I students. The average age is 30. Nearly all the 
S respondents are male. 

Few common denominators exist in occupations 
{ or locales. Jobs range from attorney to musical 
j dramatist to the Playboy Adviser, publishing from 
1 North Carolina to California, from Australia to 
jjj Germany. 

For some editors, the reason to publish online is 
I remarkably simple. It’s not expensive (once you get _ 

, * past the necessary hardware); new HTML programs allow f 
J non-geeks to program Web pages. Then there's that single ^ 
j driving ambition: worldwide recognition. 

“First, I’m a computer nerd," responds Chris Conway, 18, * 
j editor of Fat Nipples, an e-zine with a punk perspective, “sec- fA 
p ond, it reaches thousands of people inexpensively (compared 5 
f to printing costs, etc.)." 

Other editors provided more complex sociological p 
J answers. Nathan Saliwonchyk, a 20-year-old psychology stu- fjjS 
IlSi dent and editor of beanie , a self described “bizarre collection Hi 
of fiction, truths, half truths and illustrations," says, “I didn't < 
ft decide to do this, exactly, beanie asked us to send freedom to \ 
i people in this world and well, we couldn’t say no. If we did, jj 
| he wouldn't give us anymore chocolatey Wagon Wheels." 

Having a relatively low overhead and instant distribution 
1 seems particularly attractive to college students, too poor to j 
i publish on paper, vet with ample access to hardware and 
5 servers through universities. 

* “Now people with talent have access to publish things Af 

instead of people with money,” Saliwonchyk says. Vera ^ 
Rabyd, 45, the editor of Coven Pride , agrees. “Overhead is I 
IH now better spent on bridges and roads rather than rash, illit- ! 

| crate ravings of the rich who can summon the overhead for a 1 
iijii horrific punt glossy." 


Velcome to hc-.m m. Hm r*. where ymir freedom begins, 


- 77i*s Pj/rpfiis rfhewt ie\ 


b/Mr.pi* to F'eani* y&\ Ij 

*V l.'i m* by i Its-, ■ ■: 3 s 

■ Tiif Dnfwirir.fi .J Fr- rriAm 

ilinrH* 11/* rf< r.f restfirt; b*nfi>e 


J I Ithough they believe this movement started with m 
mm desktop publishing, editors agree that the Internet! 

I JFi has leveled out the playing field for those without | 
llfjpp extensive resources. 

I “In the paper world, I would have been broke after one 
issue," says Brian Murphy, a 27-year-old who works as a car- j 
penter by day, then as the sole writer of Brian at night. “Now M 
I can compete with anyone. You’re only limited by your imag- jj 
ination, especially out here." 
i But is everyone’s imagination worth publishing? 

“Owning a computer isn’t the same as possessing editori- || 
| al sense. It’s a sad fact that the stories and poetry published I 
j|f in most — 99 percent — of the fiction e-zines is dreadful," says | 
Meg Hamel, the 30-year-old publisher of Century, a bi- m 
+ monthly short-story magazine. □ 

“It’s a two-edged sword and aren’t they all?," says Steven m 

g Jarvis, 26, editor of the quarterly literary journal Kudzu. “It’s m 
allowed people with real creativity and taste to put out good j 
work. On the other hand, while in the print world a bad news j 
magazine won’t last past the first issue or two, it allows bad * 
e-pubs to live on indefinitely." || 

!§li I Mike MacLeod, 43, of Channel Four, an e-zine about type JJ 
P ^ $ four personalities, argues, that leveling the field does not nec- §| 
essarily bring down the quality across the board. “All things ’ 


fi gure 6. pull quotes: In publishing, pull quotes 
are used to emphasize a statement within the 
story. Visually, they are used to break up space 
within the text more dynamically. They should 
not simply float by themselves on a page. (See 
also: read out.) 


NOW PEOPLE WITH 


TALENT HAVE ACCESS TO 


HEY, WHOEVER SAID THESE 
COMPUTER GEEKS DON’T HAVE 
A LIFE? a ?irst> 1 >Tn 

a computer 
rierd,” says 
Chris Conway, 
18 , an e-zine 
editor. “Second, 
it reaches thou- 
sands of peo- 
ple inexpen- 
sively (compared 
to printing 

costs, etc.J.” 


PUBLISH THINGS 


INSTEAD Of PEOPLE 


WITH MONEY , 77 NATHAN 


SALIWONCHYK, SO, EDI~ 


figure 7. ladders: Ladders 
occur in copy when 
more than three hypens 
in a row are present 
in unjustified or justi- 
fied type. This makes it dif- 
ficult for the reader to fol- 
low, and is unsightly. They 
tend to make copy editors 
nervous and agitated. 


TOR Of BEANIE 


Key to Preceding Spread 


figure 1. headline: The head- 
line declares what the story is 
about, and is often witty. It is 
larger than the body copy and 
easily grasped by the reader. 
Never, ever hyphenate or 
break words within the head- 
line. 


figure 2. deck: The deck, 
along with the headline, gives 
the reader a quick overview of 
the story. These two items 
should be placed at the top of 
the page and in close proxim- 
ity to one another. 


fi gure 3. drop cap: The drop 
cap is the first letter, and the 
first letter only, of the body 
copy that is traditionally 
much larger than the rest of 
the text. 


fi gure 4. body text: The body 
text is the story itself. Most 
body copy is justified, 
although flush left ragged 
right is acceptable for 
columns and shorter stories. 
Avoid using ragged left type, 
as it is hard for the reader to 
track. 


figure 5. byline: Give credit 
where credit is due. Make 
sure to list your writer who, 
in this case, is Jeff Teal. This is 
usually slightly larger than the 
body copy, but not as large as 
the deck. Place it near the top 
of the story. 



December ‘95 






INTERNET USERS ARE 
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ABOUT E-MAIL 



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Eudora Pro lets you attach sound, graphics, or 
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them in their applications. It also separates your 
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« 

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Eudora Pro comes with everything you need right in the 
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Do not feel the need to 
fill white space with 
meaningless repetitive 
graphics and screens. 


mnu or cdnicnts 


considered, the publishing field will be more interesting and 
varied. When I was a teenager, basking in the chartreuse 
radiance of 1966 San Francisco a few miles away, few 
teenage boys played any instrument, let alone guitar. Now 
half do, or so it seems. But there are probably a hundred 
times more virtuoso players.” 

Michael Goldberg, editor of the graphically slick and 
info-packed Addicted to Noise and a former editor and staff 
writer for Rolling Stone , considers his music e-zine to be as 
mainstream a publication as any paper version. 

“One of the reasons I started Addicted to Noise is that I 
saw nothing else out there that was doing anything near 
what I wanted to do,” says Goldberg of the December 1994 
launch. “I hired a lot of great writers, the top journalists and 
graphic artists... Most writers thought it sounded great.” 


G oldberg, named Music Journalist of the Year that 
same year by the Music Journalism Awards, says he 
tries to take full advantage of the electronic medium 
by including sound samples and links from the subject of 
current articles to related articles from previous issues. Also, 
his magazine continually maintains up-to-date news on the 
music world, often daily. Those capabilities are something 
that a print magazine cannot offer. 

Despite the advantages of the medium, 
however, Goldberg has had some prob- 
lems with bands and advertisers. 

“Some bands, just to be contrary, 
don’t want anything to do with 
online,” he says, citing the punk bands 
Green Day and Rancid as examples. 

“Also, few companies had a sales rep 
for the Internet when we first started. 

We had to educate people on interac- 
tive online advertising.” Goldberg says 
the key to gaining advertisers is routing 
Web traffic through the magazine site, which he says must be 
done through promotion and links within the ’net. Other 
editors said that getting links to their site was key. For some 
e-zines, it’s been easy. Others have found that even regular 
readers may link to “cool” sites, yet not to e-zines, although 
they are not sure why. 

Goldberg does not yet break even with advertising rev- 
enue, yet he says, “it’s only a matter of time.” He says he 
will never charge readers for his magazine. “We made a very 
conscious decision to not charge. We didn’t want there to be 
any roadblocks between our magazine and our readers.” 

Not everyone agrees with Goldberg’s stance, such as 
Steve Velvington, editor of the Star-Tribune Online , the elec- 
tronic version of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The paper 
started its electronic publication earlier this year; other 

newspapers have been watching closely. In the 
end, Velvington believes most major newspa- 
pers will end up charging for their products. 
It’s simply necessary to survive on the ’net, 
since most online publications are not able to 
support content through advertising. 

“They’re not making any money on the 
Internet,” Velvington says of high-profile elec- 
tronic newspaper efforts such as the San Jose 
Mercury News and the Orlando Sentinel. “If 
there is any exchange of money between 
advertisers and newspapers, it’s just play 
money, experiment money. There have not yet been any suc- 
cessful experiments.” 

While that’s the attitude of the larger dailies or even 
weeklies, most of the e-zines take issue with the idea of 


“Some bands, just to be contrary, 
don’t want anything to do with 
online,” said Michael Goldberg of 
ADDICTED TO NOISE, citing the 
punk bands Green Day and 
Rancid as examples. 


December ‘95 







# 


Make sure to use resolution 
appropriate to your medium. 
Online graphics only need to 
be 72 dpi, but printed images 
should have dpi at least twice 
that of the linescreen the mag- 
azine will be printed at to 
avoid pixelation of the image. 


♦ 


* 


♦ 


♦ 


I Tr ^ 

F nf 


'i 

•< 


1 


♦ 


charging for their publication. “Selling is for savages,” says 
Wayne Bremser, 23, editor of plagiarism. Beanie's 
Saliwonchyk states, “If they charge them money, they’re 
jerks. The Internet is about connecting people, not a busi- 
ness venture.” 

Some e-zines openly scorn the idea of accepting ads. “If 
an advertiser was willing to sit down with us, understand 
our editorial mission and understand who our readers are, 
we might consider advertising,” said an editor at Suck, a 
self-proclaimed experiment in provocation, mordant 
deconstructionism and buzz-saw journalism. “But right now 
on the Web, most advertisers just care about ‘hit,’ or eye- 
balls. We’ve got ‘em, but we’re not interested in selling our 
content that way. Advertisers need to give up on the crass 
commercialism they’re pummeling the ’net with.” 

Other editors, like 3 3 -year-old Duncan Stickings of Big 
Dreams, a monthly newsletter focusing on personal devel- 
opment and small-business topics, are simply indifferent 
toward the business side of their magazine. “I have had a 
couple of advertising agencies contact me,” he says. “I pass 
it on to my local service provider. They never follow up. I 
am not phased by this.” 

Jeff Zie, 26, online producer of WebWorks and Emap 
Consumer Online , says many advertisers are interested in 
the Internet but now only focus on mainstream publications 
that have name recognition-just like in the paper world. 




# 


# 




m 


* 


* #• 

* ^ * 

m. H 

% 

# . W 

# * 

# # 

% * 

► * * ♦ * * 


E -zines as stand-alone products are viewed as less 
legitimate only because they are new,” Zie says. 
Many editors comment that some businesses are 
unfamiliar with the ’net, so they cannot conceptualize a 
magazine that exists only on a viewer’s computer screen. 
Editors at BeatThief, an eclectic ’zine that centers on music 
and poetry, said they’ve called up record companies asking 
for CDs to review or to interview bands and they keep ask- 
ing questions such as, “So you’ve got a magazine on that 
Internet thing? How does that work exactly?” 

“Once the ‘backroom’ element has been removed, peo- 
ple are far more receptive. ..Internet publishing will become 


a legitimate business, pro- 
viding we continue to pur- 
sue the concept of broad- 
ening the experience of 
being online,” Zie says. 

Editors may find they 
have more advantages 
over print in the near 
future, with innovations 
such as animation, better 


‘Right now on the Web, most 
advertisers just care about ‘hit,’ or 
eyeballs. We’ve got ‘em, but we’re 
not interested in selling our 
content that way...’ 


text control, plus video and sound improvements thanks to 
programs such as Netscape Gold, Java and Blackbird. 
Ultimately, the ability to offer much more than a paper mag- 
azine may be the digital ink world’s greatest sword, allow- 
ing for a completely interactive reading experience with 
an e-zine. 

Considering that in the earlier part of the century, pub- 
lishing still required linotype, huge presses and lots of 
money, it’s amazing how far technology has taken the medi- 
um. Many of the editors we surveyed felt the landscape of 
the ’net will eventually be littered by thousands of e-zines, 
some good, some bad and some, well, just out there. 

“I think Gutenberg would drop to his knees and thank 
the Lord for this invention,” Brian Murphy says. “The hard- 
boiled reporters wouldn’t like it. It has no romance. They 
would retreat back into their Smith-Coronas.” O 


i 


# 


♦ 


Jeff Teal is a Chicago-based freelance writer who, like 
beanie, has a fondness for chocolatey Wagon Wheels. 


* * 





http://www.lucasarts.com 


Live and in color. 





Internet Underground’s 


Below are the URLs of the e-zines that responded 
to our unscientific survey. We also added in 
a couple of 'zines we just happen to like a lot. 
(Aren't we a subjective bunch?) With many, we've 
included comments the editors made in the sur- 
vey that we thought were great, but didn't end 
up in the story. But after reading this, you won't 
blame us for putting them in somewhere. Take a 
look, then go reading. 


THE ABRAXUS READER 

http://www.nwlink.com/-vidiot/abraxus/ 

What it Is: Fiction, poetry, and a few columns 
with a smattering of Seattle hipness. 

Who Does It: Glen Starchman, 23, deli manager 
Quote-. "I think the name of a publication is infinitely 
important. For example, I would never pick up a maga- 
zine called Pig's Feet no matter how great the content." 

THE ACID-FREE PAPER 

http://tnt.vianet.on.ca/pages/smithk/ 

What It Is-. A monthly 'zine dedicated to art, 
literature and communication culture. 

Who Does It: Kevin Smith, 36, artist, North Bay, 

Ontario, Canada 

Quote-. "A ’Gee- Whiz, this is neat' response to the 
Internet is a reflection of human nature. At times it 
feels like a big toy or playground we all get to use 
together." 

ADDICTED TO NOISE 

http://www.addict.com/ATN/ 

What It Is: Music magazine billed as the 'net's first seri- 
ous rock ’n' roll magazine, with daily updates and inter- 
views with major bands. 

Who Does It: Michael Goldberg, former editor and 
writer at Rolling Stone. 

AESCLEPIAN CHRONICLES 

http://www.forthrt.com/-chronicl/homepage.html 
What It Is: Discussion about the allopathic medical 
group dedicated to a synergistic team approach. 

Who Does It: James M. Price, 59, administrator, 

Chapel Hill, N.C. 

Quote: "The ’net is fast and getting faster. Television 
may hold your attention for 30 seconds, on the 'net, 
you have less than five." 

AISLE SAY: 

The Internet Magazine of Stage Reviews and Opinion 
http://www.escape.com/-theanet/AisleSay.html 
What It Is: Mostly New York-centered theater 
reviews and musings. 

Who Does It: David Spencer, 41, professional musical 
dramatist, Long Island 

AKDA: THE LITERARY WEB ZINE 
OF THE PHILIPPINE PAGES 

http://www.europa.com/-ria/akda.html 

What It Is: Literary 'zine highlighting Filipino writers. 

Who Does It: Ria Roncales-Goodwin, 25. 

Quote: "AKDA has a paper companion and we will try to 
continue publishing in both mediums. Why? Because 
nothing still beats an actual printed issue. The touch 
and feel of it will never be achieved by an online 
version of your work." 

AMERICA'S 4X4 4U VIDEO MAGAZINE 

http://www.4x44u.com/pub/k2/ase.htm 
What It Is: At long last, a 'zine for the 4x4 truck crowd 
Who Does It: Kendra Cook, 31, and Bill Perkins, 41, 
producers and directors in public relations 


^ 62 




Internet Underground 


BABYFISH 

http://www.umich.edu/-babyfish/! 

What It Is-. A Detroit-based collection of articles, 
reviews, vegan recipes and murders by Detroit police. 
Who Does It: Craig Stuntz, 24, student in Detroit 
Quote: "I'm not so much interested in promoting 
myself as in keeping people interested when they 
come across me." 

BAD SUBJECTS 

http://english-server.hss.cmu.edu/BS/Bad.html 
What It Is: A relatively radical collection of thoughts on 
religion, beer, the apocalypse and other things ripe for 
intellectual skewering . 

Who Does It: Annalee Newitz and Jillian Sandell, gradu- 
ate student instructors in Berkeley, Calif. 

Quote: "This is one of the biggest problems with online 
publishing, especially for a politically radical journal 
like Bad Subjects. Nearly anyone can browse in a maga- 
zine store— only a few can browse the 'net." 

BASILISK 

http-. //swerve, basi 1 isk. com/ 

What It Is: A very graphical forum for display and 
discussion of art and architecture. 

Who Does It: Ed Keller, 29, a CGI Tenderer for architects 



BEAT THIEF 

http://www.beatthief.com/ 

What It Is-. Plagiarism, Perjury, Blackmail and 
Shoplifting. Take from it what you will. 

Who Does It: Wayne Bremser, 23 
Quote-. "The people with the big bucks can fill the 
web with bandwidth-sucking bullshit and get hype for 
no reason other than their bells and whistles. People 
see right through that shit, I think." 

BELIZE FIRST 

http://www.crank.com-.8o/belize/ 

What It Is: A travel quarterly focusing on Belize. 

Who Does It: Lan Sluder, 49, Candler, N.C. 

Quote-. "A good publishing product is costly regardless 
of how it's published. You can publish crap online for 
not much, but you won’t have many readers and you 
won't last long." 

BIG DREAMS 

http://www.wimsey.com/-duncans/BigDreams 
What It Is-. A 'zine dedicated to optimistic small 
business owners: 

Who Does It: Duncan Stickings, 33, Vancouver 
Quote: "It has opened the flood gates. Not every online 
publication will survive, though. People start out with 
good intentions, but drop off after a while." 

THE BLUE PENNY QUARTERLY 

http://www.comet.chv.va.us/epubs/ 

What It Is: An electronic journal of fine writing and art 
with ties to the literary small press publishing world. 
Who Does It: Doug Lawson, Virginia 


A BREED APART 

http://www.pcix.com/abap/index.html 
What It Is: A forum dedicated to the care 
of retired racing greyhounds. 

Who Does It: Bruce Skinner, 28, molecular 
biology reagent salesman 

BRIAN 

http://www.streams.com/brian/ 

What It Is: Stuff that interests Brian. 

Who Does It-. Brian Murphy, 27, carpenter, Chicago 
Quote: "I think Gutenberg would drop to his knees and 
thank the Lord for this marvelous invention. The hard- 
boiled reporters wouldn't like it. It has no romance. 
They would retreat back into their Smith-Coronas." 

BUNNYHOP MAGAZINE 

http://www.slip.net/-bunnyhop 

What It Is: Print-based publication exploring the soft 

and fluffy edge of pop culture. 

Who Does It-. Seth Robson, 24, art director for a San 
Francisco software company 
Quote: "In the mad, hype-fueled rush for everyone to 
get online, people often don't take things into consider- 
ation. It's like they'll put just about any ill-conceived, 
poorly-executed material out there, just so they can 
say they're online." 

CAT MACHINE 

http://www.students.uiuc.edu/-wiberg/cat 
What It is: Literary ’zine, heavy on poetry 
Who Does it: Chris Wiberg, 19, student 

CENTURY 

http://www.supranet.com/century/ 

What It Is: Fiction with a surrealistic edge. 

Who Does It: Meg Hamel, 30, freelance editor in 
Madison, Wise. 

Quote-. "Just because something can be on the Web 
doesn't mean it should be. TV Guide is one thing. A 
short-story magazine or a novel is another. It's still far 
more convenient and enjoyable to read from a paper 
copy that can be carried with you to the bath, the bed 
or the beach." 

CHIP'S CLOSET CLEANER 

http://virtumall.com/zines/chip/main.html 

What It Is: Basically, things Chip finds in his synaptic 

closet— a medley of pop culture and sex. 

Who Does It: Chip Rowe, 28, the Playboy forum adviser 
Quote: "There are still plenty of people without access. 
Freedom of the press still belongs to the people who 
own one, whether it's supplied by ink or ones and 
zeroes." 

CHRONICLES OF CHAOS 

http://www.geom.umn.edu-.8ooo/-bmeloon/music/coc/ 

coc.html 

What It Is: Interviews and reviews of any band with 
"death" in at least two song titles and equipped with 
drill presses for percussion. 

Who Does It: Gino Filicetti, 18, high-school student, 
and Adrian Bromley, 23, free-lance writer 
Quote: "I thought that it would be impossible to 
approach record companies... I thought that they would 
laugh in our faces. But not one of them shunned us or 
turned us down. In fact, the response was ecstatic." 

COVEN PRIDE 

http-.// www. modcult. brown, edu/ people/ rabyd/Coven_ 
Pride_814.html 

What it is-. A weekly forum dedicated to pseudonymous 
witches and warlocks. 

Who Does It: Vera Rabyd, 45 

Quote-. "WAIT! THIS IS BULLSHIT! YOU GUYS AREN'T 

UNDERGROUND! I'VE BEEN HAD!” 



I scream, you scream, 
we all scream for e-zines 


Newsstand 


CROPDUSTER 

http://chat.carleton.ca/-smeece/crop.html 
What it is: Sociological deconstruction of teen maga- 
zines and other celebrations of modern-day malaise. 
Who Does It: Steven Meece, 22, college student, 

Ottawa, Canada 

Quote-. "We have no intention of making a living from 
this thing. That requires hucksterism, something I'm not 
really interested in. We lose money on every issue." 

DAS BONNER UNI-MAGAZIN 

http://www.rhrz.uni-bonn.de/-uzaooa/ 

Was Es 1 st: Ein Student-Magazin aus Bonn, Deutschland 
Wer Macht Es: Philipp Angermeyer, 24, student 
Quote: "In Germany, the "WWW" is often pronounced 
’Vorld Vide Veb'— you might find that amusing, my 
American girlfriend's mother does." 

E-ZINE REVIEWS 

http://sunsite.unc.edu/faint/eziner/index.html 
What It Is-. Provides a space for reviewers to express 
their opinions about the e-zines. 

Who Does It: Blaise Faint, 29, Chapel Hill N.C. 

FAT NIPPLES 

http://pluto.njcc.com/-chris 

What It Is-. A personal punk-zine, with a lot of politics 

thrown in. 

Who Does It: Chris Conway, 18, student at New York 
University, New York City 

THE FLIP ZONE ZINE 

http://www.europa.com/-ria/zine/zone.html 
What It Is: An alternative 'zine for younger Filipinos. 
Who Does It: Ria Roncales-Goodwin, 25. 

Quote: "Text will always be more important than graph- 
ics. There's already a growing backlash against web- 
sites that display big graphics but really showing no 
content." 

GEEKGIRL 

http:// www. next.com.au/spyfood/ geekgirl 
What It Is: A home amongst popular culture for the 
budding online grrrl. 

Who Does It: rosiex, otherwise known as geekgirl, of 
Newton, Australia 

Quote-. "Our motto 'grrls need modems' (St. Jude) has 
been an awesome message to women who felt nervous 
about walking the plank. Us pirates give 'em a push." 

GRILLED PTERODACTYL 

http://www.ozemail.com.au/-drgrigg/ptero.html 
What It Is: Personal fanzine filled with anecdotes of the 
author's experiences. 

Who Does It: David Rowland Grigg, 45, interactive mul- 
timedia industry in Australia 
Quote: "Self publishing is always interesting and indi- 
vidual — to me it replaces the Victorian habit of writing 
lots of long letters or diaries." 

HARDC.O.R.E. 

http://www.public.iastate.edu/-krs_one 

What It Is: E-zine for Committee of Rap Excellence 

Who Does It: Steve "Flash" Juon, 21, student, Iowa 

INTERNET HERALD 

http://server.berkeley.edu/herald/ 

What It Is-. A 'zine published by and for Gen-Xers. 

Who Does It: Auren Hoffman, 21, student at University 
of California, Berkeley 

INTERTEXT 

http://www.etext.org/Zines/InterText/ 

What It Is: A fiction magazine with a heavy bent toward 
science fiction, fantasy and horror. 

Who Does It: Jason Snell, 25, associate editor 


JOYCE WANKABLE 

http://www.rbdc.com/-hgambill/joyce.htm 

What It Is: Alternative music, underground film and the 

occasional twisted fiction snippet. 

Who Does It: Herbert Gambill, 33, temp, North Carolina 
Quote: "Like many, I always wanted to publish a 'zine 
but never had the money to throw away. On the 
Internet, I can publish a full-color edition of my maga- 
zine with sound clips at no extra cost than the $30 
already pay a month for Internet access. Now my hum- 
ble e-zine is available to thousands, perhaps millions 
of people who will never read it." 

KILL YOURSELF 

http://hops.cs.jhu.edu/-mbk/killyourself.html 
What It Is: Sociopolitical e-zine exploring everything 
that's wrong with the world. 

Who Does It: David Holtz, 17, high school senior, 

Indiana, Pennsylvania 

Quote: "I think 'Kill Yourself' is pretty straight forward 
and possibly offensive. People tend to have a drawing 
toward offensive things. It gives them an opportunity to 
retaliate, to fight back" 

KUDZU 

http-.// www. etext. org/Zines/Kudzu/ 

What It Is: A quarterly digital magazine dedicated to 
compiling the best in fiction, poetry, and essays. 



Who Does It: Steven Jarvis, 26, law 
student at the University of Arkansas 
Quote-. "Ninety percent of everything is crap. 

On the 'net, that number goes up." 

MOON ONLINE 

http://www.moonmag.com 

What It Is-. Online version of quality alternative 

weekly Who Does It: Colin Whitworth 

Quote: "We use irreverence and satire to point out 

absurdity in our society. If that's what it takes to get 

people to read my stories, so be it." 

THE MORPO REVIEW 

http://www.morpo.novia.net/morpo/ 

What Is It: Not-your-usual suspect subjects, 
including sonnets to Captain Kangaroo and reviews of 
the existential context of Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and 
Ham. Who Does It: Robert Fulkerson, graduate 
student, Nebraska 

NETCHEF ELECTRONIC MAGAZINE 

http://www.netchef.com 

What it is: A series of answers to the question 

"What do I want for dinner tonight?" 

Who Does It: Jeff Hartweg, 27, and Tim Cushman, 42 
Quote: "The name (of your e-zine) is absolutely critical. 
Because your competitor is a mouse click away, it's 
important to convey who you are in one second." 

THE NEO PAGAN TIMES 

http://scorpion.cowan.edu.au/-jmcnair/neopag.htm 
What It Is: Witches, occultists, warlocks and so on, 
with a few music reviews thrown in for good measure. 
Who Does It: John McNair, 39 

PLANET MAGAZINE 

http://users.aol.com/planetmag/home.html. 

What It Is: A quarterly of science fiction, fantasy, 


horror, humor and poetry by no one 
you've ever heard of. 

Who Does It: Andrew G. McCann, 37 
Quote: "Those that are good are likely to 
survive, those that suck will die." 

POOPLINE: ELECTRIC POOP GOD 

http://www.globalgraphics.com/GlobalZines.html 
What It Is: A bile-riling 'zine that takes a sarcastic aim 
at politics, trends, entertainment and life in general. 

Who Does It: Tom Boyle, 26, owner of Global Graphics, 
Mountain View, Calif. 

Quote-. "Web publishing is a phenomenal opportunity. 
Where else can you distribute to possible millions of 
viewers with a full-color, interactive and multimedia 
periodical?" 

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH: 

The John Denver Internet Fan Club 
http://www.sky.net/-emily 
What It Is: Fanzine dedicated to the blond, environ- 
mentally correct star of "Oh, God!" 

Who Does It: Emily Parris, 46, part-time courier 
Quote: "The internet is like a vast frontier just ’waiting' 
to be conquered. In my case, 1 wanted to bring together 
the John Denver fans scattered across the globe." 

RUSSIAN TRADE CONNECTIONS 

http: //www. zpub.com/rtc 

What It Is-. A monthly Web publication covering the 
commerce of our mortal enemies, oops, we mean good 
friends to the west. 

Who Does It: Richard Petersen, 45, San Francisco, Calif. 

SAM JOHNSON'S REVENGE 

http://pobox.com/slt/ 

What It Is: Free-lanced essays on mostly serious and 
occasionally obscure issues. 

Who Does It: Derek Davis, 56, free-lance writer 
Quote: "I started Sam's Revenge as a one-man band 
with the hope of making money on the Internet but it 
proved (for now) a fantasy. I spent much too much time 
on it, lost much too much money and now have to put 
more effort into freelancing to support my family." 

TERRORIST PROFILE WEEKLY. 

(http://www.site.gmu.edu/-cdibona 

What It Is-. News and dire warnings about troublesome 

foreigners and militia types 

Who Does It: Chris DiBona, 24, e-mail administrator for 
Washington, D.C. law firm. 

Quote: "Electronic publishing is considered the equiva- 
lent of the pamphlet given out at the top of the subway 
escalators— sometimes it's true, sometimes it's loony." 

THE UNDERGROUND REVIEW 

http://www.ionet.net/-ordway 
What It Is: A smorgasbord of juicy stuff from the politi- 
cally incorrect agenda. 

Who Does It: Davis Mauldin, 48, Internet product sales- 
person in Tulsa, Okla. 

X MAGAZINE JOHN 

http://michaeljones.uoregon.edu/ 

What It Is-. A pop-cultural extravaganza aiming at 

twentysomethings 

Who Does It: Michael Jones, Oregon 

For more e-zines, consult 
JOHN LABOVITZ'S E-ZINE LIST 

http://www.meer.net/-johnl/e-zine-list/index.html 
An exhaustive list describing more than 600 
alternative, independent and other 'zines.O 

iiLUp 

Uiuuj 

63 

rtmtft 



December ’95 











echnology lias played the villain since the 
earliest days of cinema. From Metropolis in 
™ 1927 to 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968, 

filmmakers learned to play upon our cultur- 
al fears of a world enslaved by the technology 
mankind created. Terminators to cyborgs, computers 
in films have transformed into symbols of our capa- 
bility for evil. Like the Frankensteins and Draculas of 
old, limitless technology is our modern monster. 

Today, with computers entering more homes, the 
growth of the Web and the creation of virtual reality, 
a technocratic future vision is no longer such a laugh- 
able premise. Computers and technology continue to 
fascinate the contemporary imagination; one can 
travel to Istanbul by way of Beijing with the click of 
a mouse or access the U.S. Library of Congress while 
hiking through Peru. As AT&T has told us, if you 
can’t do it now, “You will.” Corporations such as 
Microsoft and MCI spend millions to market the 
concept that technology is our friend. But for all 
that technology offers us, there is a flip side- 

an undercurrent of 
i ^ ^ fear that Hollywood 

11 ^ lias attempted to 

I I exploit. Even the 

most skilled tech 


or suspense, WarLiames soared at the box office, gross- 

■ | ing $74.4 million. Director John Badham hit a nerve 

with the America public. By focusing on the then-unfa- 
miliar capabilities of computers, Badham crafted a 
movie that played on the public’s Cold War mentality 
coupled with the fear that technology could eventually 
surpass human potential. 

WarGames portrayed the computer as the object of 

) t 4 mt i i terror, a great unknown villain out for world domina- 

ZA \ /{ p Hh tion. Yet, in a brilliant stroke by Badham, Broderick 

A-ii. ▼ JL A — J mmm defeats it by teaching the machine to play tic-tac-toe 

against itself. A computer with enough memory to 
begin a nuclear holocaust is rendered impotent by a child’s game. 

Move years ahead to 1995. With computers now commonplace, people don’t so 
much fear technology as they embrace it, evidenced by the millions using the Internet 
daily. As a result, a whole new market is opening for the major studios. Computers 
alone can’t be the villain now. As the recent rash of computhrillers demonstrates, the 
people who manipulate computers, rather than the actual hardware, have become 
the villains. 

“The Net” typified Hollywood’s effort at tackling the techie market. Sandra Dm 

Bullock, Hollywood’s attempt at a computer geek’s pin-up, plays the wholesome, ^ 

vet attractive software analvst who stumbles across a diskette that allows entrv into 

J * * 

worldwide corporate and government computer systems. In The Net , the enemy is 
not the computer on which Bullock types, but the evil corporation, manifested by a 
hitman on her trail. As the film proves, our cultural fears no longer revolve around 
technology's seemingly limitless capacity. Instead, The Net attempts to transfer our 
fears to compucrats like Bill Gates and nebulous organizations of evil (not unlike 
James Bond’s nemesis C.H.A.O.S.) and their attempts to control cyberspace. 


December '95 





Ironically, filmmakers’ inability to 
successfully incorporate computers into 
their bag of tricks may be the result of the 
tedium associated with the current tech- 
nology. Computers are still not complete- 
ly user-friendly. They crash. They’re too 
slow. And even those adept at maneuver- 
ing through codes and access numbers 
run into problems. Hollywood block- 
busters have always been vehicles for 
escapism, a chance to flee from reality for 
a mere two hours. But those who use 
computers know the painful amount of 
“real time” one must spend logged on at 
a terminal to get anything accomplished. 
From secretarial work to data entry, the 
American populace associates little glam- 
our with computers. Thus, when the stu- 


THE DUBIOUS FACE- 
GLAZING SCREEN 
REFLECTOR IN HACKERS 


dios attempt to incorporate spe- 
cial effects and high-tech gadgetry or 
dubious technology into their films, 
the American public knows that it is 
only a charade. Computhrillers ask 
us to believe that computers are as 
interesting as the stars who use them. 

Hollywood should study its 
own past. Instead of building plots 
around gimmicks, they should stick 
to the character interaction and 
human effects. Computers should 
only be narrative devices, inanimate objects with 
monitors and keyboards. Instead of creating origi- 
nal stories, Hollywood has taken the low road. 
With a backlog of scripts and tired narrative twists, 
these computhrillers incorporate technology into 
films for the basest of reasons-to create a new mar- 
ket where they can rehash the same old plot. 
Just as Bull Durham prompted a host of baseball 
films and Lethal Weapon renewed the buddy- 
cop movie formula, film studios are hoping to reap 
success by beating the computer to death. So it 
goes in Hollywood, where artifice always wins out 
over artistry. 

Maybe that’s why Hollywood has yet to create 
a ’net-based film to win outright at the box-office. 
A quick glimpse at the box-office figures for recent 
computhrillers tells the tale all too well. Virtuosity 
even with Denzel Washington as a drawing card 


pulled in a meager $23.2 million. 
Johnny Mnemonic , a cyberpunk 
thriller starring Keanu Reeves, 
brought in less than $19 million. The 
Net , despite Bullock’s rising star, 
checked in with a disappointing 
$47.7 million. Hackers , a flimsy story 
of a techno-brat pack (think The 
Breakfast Club battling evil on the 
streets of New York with modems in 
hand) performed especially poorly 
with $7.3 million at press time. 

The leaders in the film industry 
should realize that only a fraction of 
the population knows the difference 
between gigabytes and megabytes or 
even cares to find out the difference. 
Slick high-tech gizmos don’t mean as 
much to the American public as good 
stories. In Clear and Present Danger , 
one of the most suspenseful moments 
involves Harrison Ford sitting at 
a computer typing. It’s not his 
action, it’s not the evil computer 
that made the scene gripping; it was 
the plot and the character the audi- 
ence learned to believe. Until 
Hollywood realizes technology is 
only as interesting as the people who 
use it and affected by it, com- 
puthrillers will continue to perform 
the way their desktop counterparts 
sometimes do — crash. O 


Film Flaws: Dubious Technology 


We've all seen science- 
fiction movies depicting 
questionable advancements in 
technology, but what about 
those flicks that purport to 
reflect modern-day reality? 
Thanks to the continued recy- 
cling of Hollywood gags, dubi- 
ous technology has become 
remarkably consistent, with the 
same ridiculous stretches show- 
ing up in films from Rising Sun 
to Eve of Destruction. 


The face-glazing screen reflector: A staple of hacker movies, this impossibility somehow 
manages to turn screens into overhead projectors, launching whatever is on the computer onto 
the surprisingly reflective faces of the operators. The reflector shows up most often in sus- 
penseful situations, including high-tension moments in WarGames , Hackers and Sneakers. Also 
often used on posters to confirm that "Yes, computers are in this movie." 

The Mysterious Graphic Database of Everyone: Probably the most overused absurdity, 
this mythical listing not only has facts on everyone ever born, it also contains a comprehensive 
series of graphics. Featured prominently in Basic Instinct, we were led to believe the state of 
California uploaded everyone's driver's license (complete with haggard photo) onto some 
unknown system. The Database also showed up in Sleepless in Seattle, when Meg Ryan discovers 
ridiculously personal information about Tom Hanks through a Nexis/Lexis database. 


The amazing image regenerator: This recurrent absurdity tries to convince audiences that destroyed or obscure images 
are recoverable with time, a plucky computer expert and a tight enough zoom. In No Way Out, the back strip of a Polaroid 
descends into new depths of pixels as the damning picture of Kevin Costner. In Rising Sun, a dark shadow reflected in a plate- 
glass window is translated into a clearly recognizable face with a few clicks of a mouse. 

The easy animation quick-keys shortcut: More common in late-' 80 s teen flicks than today, this geek seduction tactic 
allows a computer-savvy character to sit down at any PC, slap a few commands into the keyboard and create a little guy that 
walks across the screen. This pick-up technique was used to woo women in both Pretty in Pink and Revenge of the Nerds with an 
amount of success unheard of by most C++ hobbyists. 

The anti-gravity floating device: Used in almost every movie that takes place in space, this mysterious gremlin allows so- 
called "astronauts" to float around as if gravity never existed. Starting with 2001: A Space Odyssey, a flick where humans walk 
across the moon (dubious at best) and continuing in Apollo 13, this ridiculous development pretends that space is devoid not 
only of air, but gravity! Thank goodness we had Flash Gordon to show us the truth. At least in the infinitely more believable 
Moonraker you could hear the explosions in space. 


by Justin Ware 


>0N 


RODNEY 

Early in October, after a hart 
day of surfing, I came acrosj 
http://www.rodney.com, a sit 
dedicated to the work and 
of Rodney Dangerfil 
Initially, I assumed this was a 
fan site, except that a couple 
of elements, like correspon- 
dence between Rodney and the 
Academy of Motion Picture 
Arts and Sciences, seemed like 
tough artifacts for a fan to 
scrape up. Figuring this was a 
lot of effort for a Rodney 
enthusiast to go through, I 
dropped the site some e-mail. 

Less than a day later 




the net with 


anger 

I got a note back — yes, this was 
really Rodney ; yes, he does his own 
Web page; and yes, he's getting 
RealAudio for all those .wav files of 
his Joke of the Day. Finding a celebri- 
ty who not only knows about the Web 
but actually participates, especially at 
age 73, is quite a rarity. So IU decided 
to talk to Rodney about his experi- 
ence in cyberspace and answer the 
ultimate question: Could the star of 
Caddyshack, Easy Money and Back 
to School at least find some respect 
on the Web ? 



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do 70 Tonight Shows with Johnny Carson. 45 Merv Gnffen's and hundreds of others always i 
outfit It became sort of a trade mark 
d out about tbs. they ca&ed and said that they wanted to hang me 


3 

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to 

a> 


RODNEY’S 
SITE SHOWS 
HE’S GOT 
SOME 
RESPECT 
Above, a 
photo OF HIS 
TRADEMARK RED 
RE AND WHITE 
SHIRT ENSRINED 
AT THE SMITH- 
SONIAN 


£ 

o 

o 


to 

i 

t 

a 

0 


Internet Underground : What pro- 
jects are you working on right now 
in real life? Can you tell us a little 
about the film you’re currently 
shooting? 

Rodney Dangerfield: I’m excited 
about my new talking book, La 
Contessa , where I reveal my torrid 
love affairs and also about my new 
movie, Meet Wally Sparks , about a 
scandalous talk show host. Burt 
Reynolds and Cindy Williams are 
in it and cameos are made by 
Michael Bolton, Jay Leno, Bob 
Saget, Tony Danza and Ron 
Jeremy. 

IU: What was your first experience 
with computers? 

RD: I thought, “Wow, who invent- 
ed this?” Then, I pulled a muscle 
downloading. 

IU: How did you get interested in 
the Internet and cyberspace? 

RD: My wife showed me and I 
thought it was wild. 

IU: How long has your Web site 
been up and who designed it? Who 
created your screen saver? 

RD: I launched it in March. I 
decided the kind of stuff I wanted 
up there and had some help 
designing it from my wife and 
some computer guys at HLC- 
Internet and an independent con- 
sultant named Ken Johnson. 



December ’95 




A LITTLE 


IU: Does having a Web site allow 
you to show more of your person- 
ality than more traditional media? 
What part of your site do you 
think best defines you as a person 
as well as an entertainer? 

RD: Since it’s my own personal 
site, I can say whatever I want and 
talk about my side of the story 
with the Academy rejecting me 
and AT&T saying I’m not digni- 
fied enough to represent them. 
Whatever I want to talk about... 
sort of a soapbox, I guess. 

IU : How much e-mail do you get? 
Do your fans actually believe that 
it’s you? Are people surprised that 
you have a ’net presence? 

RD: People are surprised, and 
when I do answer, sometimes they 
write again and say “Only the real 
Rodney would answer like that,” 
and other times they don’t think 
it’s me at all. I get hundreds of let- 
ters a day and pick out some good 
ones to answer. 

IU: Has being on the Internet and 
having e-mail given you any new 
jokes or material for your routine, 
and if so, what are they? 

RD: One guy sent me a joke I 
liked. I bought it from him, but it’s 
too dirty to quote here. 

IU: Do you e-mail other celebri- 
ties? What is the general 
Hollywood reaction to cyber- 
space? 

RD: I’ve sent messages to a few 
and they never answered back. 
I can’t speak for “general 
Hollywood,” but I’m still learning 
my way around cyberspace. It’s all 
new to me, too. 

IU: What are your favorite Web 
sites? 

RD: I like the idea of Virtual Vegas 
and RealAudio. And I’ll give my 
wife a plug: visit her site at 
jungleroses.com. 


RODNEY AND HIS FRIENDS 



Rodney with his best friend and wife Joan. 


Rodney’s Gallery 

COVERS FROM PAST 
TO PRESENT 



Rodney in high school ! 


RD: Someone sent a pornographic 
photo once in response to some- 
thing I said through e-mail. At the 
time, I didn’t know you could send 
photos so it came as a real surprise. 

IU: Where is your computer set up 
and what does the surrounding 
environment look like? 

RD: My computer sits on the cre- 
denza behind my desk. The micro- 
phone for the computer is propped 
up on a comedy award statue. All 
this is in my living room. My wife 
decorated the whole place. 


IU: What’s the weirdest e-mail 
you’ve ever gotten? 


5 

i 

Internet Underground 



IU: Even in this new medium, 
do you still get no respect? 

RD: No respect at all, are you kid- 
din’? I never had any luck with 
computers. I bought an Apple. It 
had a worm in it! O 


RESPECT f OR 
RODNEY’S SITE 

If the fact that Rodney Dangerfleld 
has a presence on the Web doesn’t 
surprise you, the quality of his site 
will. With enough links for even the 
most die-hard Rodneyphile, Rodney’s 
home page includes everything from 
downloadable screen savers to a pic- 
ture of Rodney’s famous white shirt 
and red tie at the Smithsonian (plus, 
the inside story on why he wore the 
combination for years). Here are our 
favorite Rodney remnants: 

The Contests: Actually, Rodney 
gives away good prizes, but then 
again, some of the responses are 
pretty ripe material for his comedy 
routines. The October contest brought 
the Haute Couture Makeover Contest, 
a competition asking visitors to offer 
suggestions on how Rodney could shift 
away from his typical red tie and white 
shirt fashion ensemble into something 
a little more hip. First prize: an auto- 
graphed red tie, his three-volume 
video collection and an autographed 
copy of his new book, No Respect . 

Rodney Done Wrong: A link to 
Rodney’s rejection letter from the 
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and 
Sciences, citing a lack of “the kind of 
roles that allow a performer to demon- 
strate the mastery of the craft.” The 
letter, signed by Roddy McDowall (star 
of such illustrious industry standards 
as Fright Night, Part II and Gobots: 
Battle of the Rock Lords ) is uploaded 
in all its terse glory, along with sever- 
al articles about the snub. An accep- 
tance letter eventually arrived, provid- 
ing the basis for one of Rodney’s con- 
tests: What to do with the belated 
invitation? 

Rodney and His Friends: This 
section offers a photo album with 
some strange inclusions. Check out 
pictures of Rodney in high school, 
Rodney with his wife Joan, Rodney 
with his horse — then, once you’re done 
with this window into Rodney’s life, 
download some shots of Rodney with 
a random selection of celebrities 
ranging from Jim Carrey to Steven 
Spielberg to Norman Schwartzkopf. 





“I THINK SHE HAD 
A SAD LIFE 
THAT’S ONE OF THE 


■ MauJbe 


THINGS THAT MAKES 
HER SOMEWHAT 


appealing 


SHE HAD A 
RATHER AWFUL 
BEGINNING, BEING 
SHUFFLED AROUND 
BETWEEN FAMILIES,” 
SAYS ELLEN COTTON. 

“IN THE END, SHE 

REALLY GOT lost 

IN MARILYN MONROE 
AND SHE NEVER 
GOT BACK.” 



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In her Web site. The Marilyn Pages at http://ionet.net:80/ 

~je lien c/m a rilyn.htm l. Cotton gen- 
tly pulls the viewer through a 
haunting narrative of Monroe's life, 
from her early days as the lonely 
Norma Jean Baker to the star's sus- 
picious death on Aug. 5, 1962. 

Cotton put up her site in late 
August after retiring as a graphic 
artist at Tinker Air Force Base near 
Oklahoma City. She had tired of 
wandering around the house trying 
to do "retiree" things. 

"My interest has always been in 
photography and I was very serious 
about it. To me, this site represents 
a marriage between my graphic arts 
experience and my photography 
and the fact that I got interested in 
computers." 

As a teen. Cotton worked in a 
local theater so she could see 
movies for free. Monroe, then in 
her heyday, always enchanted her. 
Cotton saw Monroe's life as every- 
one else envisioned it: glamorous 
and pampered, the stuff of dreams. 



.. . 

Biography 

▼ 

□ 




Jl * u 







Only years later did Cotton learn Monroe 
suffered from psychological problems and 
drug addiction, trapped in a difficult and 
lonely life. 

"She was basically an unhappy person, 
even though she was so beautiful. As a 
star, I think she was underrated. I don't 
think she ever really made the serious 
movies she wanted to make. Even in The 
Misfits, they changed scripts on her all the 
time. She had no chance to really pick her 
movies the way stars do now." 

In her site, Cotton respectfully weaves 
text and photos into a narrative of 
Monroe's tragic life. Cotton searched spe- 
cial-order photo houses to find rarely used 
images of the ethereal star to mix in with 
more classic shots. At the end of the site. 
Cotton links to other Monroe memorabilia 
and related pages, including a site to order 

stamps of the bombshell. 

The text of her site does 
not speculate on Monroe's 
death. On the phone. Cotton 
said she doesn't believe 
Monroe committed suicide, 
but she doesn't think it was 
murder, either. 

"I believe it was an acci- 
dent, whether it was by her 
hand or another, we'll never 
really know. It could have 
even been her psychiatrist, 
who gave her some drugs to calm down and 
it was too much. Maybe it was the 
Kennedys, maybe the Mafia, but I genuine- 
ly think it was an accident." 

Cotton lives in Moore, Okla., a suburb 
of Oklahoma City. She got online in 1988 
with a local SLIP provider. Her 
friends don't understand when 
she talks about her Web page. 

"Well, it's hard to explain the 
Web to people who have never 
seen it. You say, 'It's kind of like 
a magazine...' but they look at 
you with a blank stare." 

The Marilyn Pages branch 
from Cotton's home page, which 
displays an innovative use of 
graphics and an eclectic collec- 
tion of her other online work. 
That includes a feature on 
Dallas, a tribute to Will Rogers 
and an excellent download of 
Salvador Dali's painting The 
Last Supper. 

At her age. Cotton thinks 
she's a minority in the world of Web pages. 
"It seems like everyone else is so young, 
but I don't care. I like doing this. I might 
do Amelia Earhart next."0 






December ’95 







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blood-splattered refrigerator door, marijuana parapher- 
nalia found in her bedroom and even the Prozac and 
birth-control pills she kept in her purse. Also included 
was a video snippet of a taped interview for the TV 
show Unsolved Mysteries with the two women who last 
saw Wilson alive. 

While details of a more famous double murder kept 
some viewers glued to their TV sets, the accounts of 
Wilson's gruesome death captivated a quiet, growing 
audience. Visitors to the Web site could cull through 
the information and compare hair strand evidence pho- 
tos. They could read a letter from the Trojan Company, 
tracing the lot number of an opened condom found at 
the scene to Oxford, Miss, convenience stores. Then, on 
a separate page, they see surveillance photos showing 
Giblin buyin condoms the day before the crime. 

After they finish, visitors can write in their own 
remarks, theories or offer tips. A few pointed out puz- 
zling inconsistencies in the evidence. A DNA expert 
offered her thoughts on samples picked up at the 
scene. Criminology experts wordwide have presented 
their conclusions. 

Reader comment , Oct. 5: This is a tragedy that I just 
happened to come across , and I'm deeply moved by the 
crime. It almost reads like a "Clue" game and at times I 
kept asking myself if it was real. It seems real enough. 

All this interest in a crime investigation online 
would mark a breakthrough for forensic investigations, 
except for one thing: Wilson is not dead. 

In fact, she's alive and well and living in Petaluma, 
Calif., where she moved with Giblin, her supposed killer 
in late September. Detective Armstrong? He's Tom 
Arriola, a 36-year-old experimental theater director 
who was living in Oxford when he cooked up his crime 

scene. "I got tired of dialogue. I 


a promising life snuffed out in such 
a degrading fashion. Many wrote 
they were shocked or deeply sad- 




tvce File 


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Yoknapatawpha County 

Law Enforcement Division Evidence Fife 


Tbs sue represents an ongoing investigation Petals below 




The Body of Valerie Wilson, age 26, was found in die kitchen of her 
Qsford. Mcasappi. apartment 

Condoms found at the scene were traced to her boyfriend Greg 
G&kn. He was s Jso the last person seen with her . Giblin is presently 

evades authoranes 

Blood found on the victim's cat points to a third, unidentified person 

* 8a 9 Report from Northview Bata Recovery 

* Evidence Photos 

* Detective Fies zi 

~ — ! : nr~ 


dened by what they had viewed. 

"I used to feel bad that I tricked 
these people and made them 
upset," Arriola says. "This reminds 
me of when realism hit the theaters; 
no one knew how to react. But rules 
for this sort of things are not 
made yet. We're still teaching peo- 
ple the conventions of how to 
behave in the theater of the Web." 

Wilson says she did not under- 
stand how the Web worked when 


Exhibit C: 

Nowhere does 

the site say it's theater, 

not a crime . 



Exhibit B: The site’s 
creator posing as the 
brutally beaten 
brother of Giblin. 


f 72 

Td/iila 


“If we’re going to charge this guy 
with impersonating an officer, 

then why don’t we go arrest Don Knotts? 
He played Barney Fife for 20 years.” 


- Oxford, Miss. Police Chief Stephen Bramlett 


wanted to find a way in which 
theater could incorporate 
drama beyond mere words and 
evoke emotion." At his site, 
viewers look at a story, watching it 
unfold from a variety of perspectives 
with a number of elements to move 
it forward. Nowhere in his site does 
Arriola note that the investigation is 
not real. That's part of the drama. 
Without that knowledge, many visi- 
tors express their horror about such 


Arriola approached her about playing a bloody corpse 
on his kitchen floor. An actress who met Arriola at the 
University of Mississippi, she had worked with him on 
other productions and learned to trust him. "Only Tom; 
if anyone else would have asked me, I would have 
thought, 'What kind of freak are you?' But I was afraid 
at first that someone would call my mother in St. Louis 
and tell her that I was dead. So I had to call her first. 
But it's funny. When I was still living in Oxford people 
would come up to me and say, 'Oh, so you are alive.'" 

Arriola says it wasn't his intent to deceive or fool 
people, but rather to draw them into the scene that he 
created. Part of it was inspired, he says, by his moth- 
er's interest in The Pelican Brief. Wouldn't it have been 


Internet Underground 





great for her to be able to go through that 
whole file herself, he thought? 

So Arriola decided to combine it with 
another of his specialties, interactive the- 
ater. The names in the site are real, so are 
the biographical facts about Wilson and 
her killer. He allowed Giblin to choose how 
he would kill his girlfriend. "I had origi- 
nally considered getting a sponsor for the 
site, but then he did all this sexual muti- 
lation stuff and I realized I couldn't." 

Giblin says he added the mutilation 
for two reasons: to get the audience emo- 
tionally involved and to add a bit 
of intrigue and layers of necessary ele- 
ments to investigate. "For some reason, 
violent death seems to draw in an audi- 
ence, even though that's kind of awful," 
Giblin says. 

The site's hits varied, fluctuating 
from day to day. When it was selected as 
Cool Site of the Day, more than 100,000 
visited, which crashed the server. Later, 
Arriola's service provider politely banned 
him. That wasn't his only trouble. 

Prodigy unwittingly helped fuel the 
site's legitimacy. In late summer, the 
online service highlighted the site on its 
daily lineup, noting that it was a real mur- 
der investigation. That day, Arriola's site 
had more than 20,000 hits, mostly from 
Prodigy members. Many expressed shock 
at what they saw. One member found out 
that it wasn't authentic when she called 
Oxford Police and was upset to find she 
had been fooled. 

At one point, Oxford Police got a little 
annoyed and considered whether Arriola 
could face any charges. What would they 
charge him with, anyway? Impersonating 
an officer? Fraud? Filing a "false" report? 
In the end, they decided he had not real- 
ly broken any laws, says Oxford Police 
Chief Stephen Bramlett. 

"Is that fraud? I don't know. Who are 
the victims? People who spent a little extra money 
downloading the stuff?" Bramlett asks. "It wasn't like 
he was impersonating an officer to the general public, 
trying to gain their confidence so that he could get 
some personal benefit. If we're going to charge this guy 
with impersonating an officer, then why don't we go 
arrest Don Knotts,? He played Barney Fife for 20 years." 

Bramlett knew immediately something was up when 
people started calling with offers to help their murder 
investigation. The quiet Mississippi town of just under 
10,000 residents hasn't had a homicide since 1993. "We 
have one every seven years, so we're not due until the 


Exhibit D: 
Surveillance photos 
of the suspect in a 
local store. 




hafs In a Ham 


Yoknapatawpha County, the purported area in 


which the murder of Karen Wilson took place, 


does not exist. Tom Arriola did not make it up, 


however. William Faulkner, who lived in Oxford, 


used it in a couple of his books. One of the 


site’s visitors stumbled upon the truth in a post- 


ing in September... 


‘What is your understanding of the motto of 


your great seal, ‘Veritas 




Faulkner,’ which translates ‘In 


<§p Faulkner is truth.’ Since 


Faulkner is not a Latin word, 


and I can hardly imagine you 


endowing one of your founding 


fathers with the attribute of embodying ‘truth.’ I 


wonder if this is a way of tipping your hat to 


William Faulkner, and tipping your hand at the 


same time. I admit I have run the name of your 


county ‘Yoknapatawpha’ through an anagram 


decoder and did not turn up much...” 


Yoknapatawpha County 

Law Enforcement Division Evidence File 


mk 



December ’95 



The December Cinescape is on newsstands now! 


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Exhibits E, F and G: from 
top: Matchbooks from 
local bars , some of the 
evidence from Wilson's 
purse; above: Blood 
splatters on the fridge 
at the “scene"; 
bottom: A fabricated 
letter from Trojan 


year 2000/' Bramlett says. People 
still call, earnestly trying to 
offer some advice. Bramlett now 
just sees the whole issue as comi- 
cally annoying. 

Many calls to both the police and 
to Arriola came from reporters and 
TV producers, from local 
stations to the Discovery 
Channel. Many journalists 
were duped. One reporter 
from a Texas paper had 
already booked her flight to 
do a story on solving crimes 
the 21st century way when 
Arriola told her, apologeti- 
cally, that the site was 
just fiction. She canceled 
her trip. 

When the trio was inter- 
viewed for a Tennessee sta- 
tion, Giblin decided to toy 
with one of the reporters by 
acting as if the site had 
wrought havoc with his life. 
He wore dark sunglasses 
and told them he wished people 
would just leave him alone. He 
made it sound as if he was being 
hounded by people recognizing him 
from the site. 

In reality, he's never had anyone 
approach him about the crime site, 

/ 



> 

given to them at face value in this society. Doing this site 

made me lose faith in the news media. Maybe it's common 
knowledge to other people, but it didn't come to me until 
now." 

Wilson says that when readers started responding with 
comments about how upset they were by what they 
viewed, she felt sad. After all, these were nice people sim- 
ply concerned that her life had ended so tragically. 

"It's interesting how willing people are to believe what 
they see. I felt kind of bad since I was supposed to be the 
dead person; some were really concerned about what hap- 
pened to me," Wilson says. "But what can you do? It has 
to look real. If Tom had put a disclaimer at the top, it 
would not have been as compelling." 

Readers alone did not just fall for the site. America's 
Most Wanted repeatedly called and e-mailed Arriola, ask- 
ing him to help put the Wilson case on their show, he 
says. Arriola reluctantly talked to them after avoiding one 
of their producers, then told them it was not a real case. 
"They kept asking how I had arranged to release so much 
information with the district attorney's office. I think 
they were upset at first, but then they kept asking us a lot 
of questions about how we did it and 
what it took to get it online. Maybe 


Tm always waiting for some crazy 
hick to jump out at me screaming, 

'hey you’re the one who killed 
that girl, you crazy bastard!’ 


- Suspected "killer” Greg Gilbin 


which may seem to indicate that 
online crime-stoppers may not be 
that effective. "I'm always waiting for some crazy hick 
to jump out at me screaming, 'Hey you're the one who 
killed that girl, you crazy bastard!' It's not like I'm wait- 
ing for a bullet, but yeah, sometimes I do worry." 

Arriola believes that the news media may be one of 
the reasons why people are so quick to believe his site 
is for real. The media taught them to be gullible, he 
says. "When they see it on the screen, people just 
assume that it's true. I could take my own hometown of 
Schnook, Mont., and give it a 1 million population and 
people wouldn't question it. So many just take what's 



they will do it themselves." 

Sept 9, reader's comment: This 
guy is obviously a psycho. I hope you 
catch him. 

Arriola doesn't know if the mur- 
der of Karen Wilson will ever be 
solved or even have a conclusion. He 
thinks of it as sort of an online Twin 
Peaks , a show he wished had not 
decided to wrap up all the odd, loose 
ends. Instead, Twin Peaks creators 
ought to have let that story go with- 
out closure, Arriola says. 

He expects it to end the way it 
started, on something of a whim. 
Perhaps Giblin will jump off the 


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December ’95 




Euil tuuins and mysterious comas: 


Oh, what a criminal mind can create 

Tom Arriola's next endeavor will not be as gruesome as 
his crime scene. Actually, fans of the show Soap will feel 
right at home at Arriola's new production, Ferndale. An 
online soap opera with a heavy dose of comedy mixed 
with some drama, the site will feature six eccentric char- 
acters living in a therapeutic community nestled in a natu- 
rally relaxing setting near an ominous wood. 

All of the main characters will live in what Arriola calls 
"a digital glass house.” Similar to last summer's online hit 
The Spot, users will have the opportunity to read the par- 
ticipants' journals and supplemental materials to gain 
entry into the Ferndale locale and mindset. But his site will 
go further. "Video cameras will be set up everywhere at 
Ferndale,” Arriola says. "If someone gets a telephone call, 


Exhibit H: Arriola , 
hot on a new 
case at Ferndale 




then it will be ’recorded' so that you can hear it on 
RealAudio. There will be no privacy at all.” Unlike The 
Spot, which relied on the drama of the interpersonal rela- 
tionships among the characters, Ferndale will be fueled by 
planned intrigue. The plot lines will be familiar to anyone 
who watches the day-time soaps: evil twins, people going 
in an out of mysterious comas and forbidden romance. 
Early on a character will disappear into the nearby wilder- 
ness. Almost from the start, the story will center around a 
mystery that will take months to solve, Arriola says. 

”1 will be the puppet master, moving all these charac- 
ters and deciding what will happen," Arriola says. "If 
I decide I just don't like someone, I can kill them off. 

It's great.” ^ 

Also different from The Spot will 
be the interaction available with the 
"residents" of Ferndale. All of the 
people who check into the site will 
be encouraged to contact Ferndale 
residents directly. A full-time staff 
of actors representing the charac- 
ters will answer their queries. The 
site is sponsored by Songline 
Productions, a joint effort by Global 
Network Navigator and America 
Online. Residents of Ferndale are 
tentatively slated to move into their 
Web site in early January at 
http://www.ferndale.com. 


: > 

Golden Gate Bridge. Arriola moved to 1 

San Francisco in late September to 
start a new Web site for Songline 
Productions (see sidebar). The pro- 
ducers there hired Arriola based on 
his handiwork on the crime scene site 
and offered him a job putting togeth- 
er one of their new high-profile inter- 
active sites. In a way, it shows anoth- 
er of the Internet's odd capabilities: 

It allowed an experimental theater 
director in a small rural town in 
Mississippi to get a job on 
the other side of the 
United States simply by 
putting up a page on the 
Web. 

As the trio traveled to 
California, they stopped at 
tourist attractions to take 
photos. "We would stand 
near real families lined up 
for shots at places like the 
Grand Canyon. Then Giblin 
would walk in the back- 
ground and we'd snap it. 

We plan to put it up on the 
site and pretend someone 
sent it into the police 
department. You know, like 'Hey, we 
were on vacation, got our photos back 
and this guy looks sort of like the killer.' Then have 
people copy that person's actions by sending in more 
photos." 

Arriola's noticed that since he put up the site, more 
law-enforcement organizations seem to have estab- 
lished a presence on the Web. While his site chronicled 
a false crime, he thinks it's only a matter of time before 
legitimate groups, including America's Most Wanted, 
detail crimes and wanted killers in a similar fashion. 

"This will happen for real one day. Sooner or later. 
Life imitating art. It happens all the time." 

Sunday, Aug. 27: Dear sirs, I think you guys are great 
in putting this on the Web. It's America's Most Wanted 
gone multimedia. We will probably see a lot more of this 
in the future. All police departments establishing a home 
page on the 'net. The links covering unsolved crimes on 
through to various public-relations projects will work 
wonders for law enforcement. WillAMW profile the case as 
well, or has it already been featured? Good luck in 
putting this case down. 

Response: We have been contacted by " America's 
Most Wanted." They have not scheduled the case for 
investigation. © 


i 


Internet Underground 




So, you've read 
Internet Underground. 

* m » i ^ 

Now, you don't want 
to miss a single 
compelling interview, 
investigative feature 
article or insightful 

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The Internet Underground is a trademark of Sendai Publishing Group, Inc. ©1995 Sendai Publishing Group. 







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Before Twinkies came 
Pop Tarts 

The T.W.l.N.K.l.E. Project owes much 
to the ground-breaking research of 
Patrick R Michaud and the Strawberry 
Pop-Tart Blow Torches site at 
http://www.sci.tamucc.edu/~pmichau 
d/toast/. Working on a tip from syn- 
dicated columnist Dave Barry, 
Michaud was able to prove that not 
only do Strawberry Pop-Tarts make 

delicious and nutritious 
„„ s ubi ect breakfast treats, frost- 
bit 1 * S ed or plain, they also 

make inexpensive incendiary 
devices. His experiment was done 
with a sacrificial toaster, some 
heavy-duty tape and Kellogg’s 
Strawberry Pop-Tarts. Michaud’s Web 
page meticulously details his experi- 

subj e / 1T1 tlie f° rTT1 °f a teb report 

• based on his flaming pastry 
hypothesis. One complaint: 
Michaud proves not to be as thor- 
ough a scientist as the Twinkie two- 
some, leaving open the question of 
why only the strawberry variety may 
be flammable. Could this incomplete 
data leave the door open to other 
experimenters? As the site hasn’t 
been updated in over a year, perhaps 
his omission is a challenge to bud- 
ding researchers to venture onward in 
this brave new world of food experi- 
mentation. Or, perhaps he just could- 
n’t afford a new toaster. 


if 


Necessity might be the mother of 
invention, but in the case of Gouge 
and Stadler, it was finals week. 
“There’s no inspiring ABC 
Afterschool-type story,” says Stadler, 
a 20-year-old computer engineering 
major from suburban Dallas. The 
two were sitting around with a bunch 
of friends during finals basically pro- 
crastinating when the discussion 
turned to a now classic Web site, the 
Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow Torches 
(see sidebar). The duo decided to 
further the research in scope and 
subject, opting to experiment on the 
Twinkie for its status as pop icon. 

What followed were four days of 
intense research in which the pair 
put Twinkie after Twinkie through a 
battery of conventional tests that 
included dropping one six stories to 
record its “gravitational response” 
and liquefying another to test its 
maximum density. (Amazingly, they 

( discovered Twinkies were 68 percent 
air.) The young scientists were able 
to complete their experiments suc- 
cessfully despite being hampered by 
observers attempting to consume the 
control subjects. 

The last test was perhaps the 
most unusual: Gouge and Stadler 
compared the intelligence of a 
Twinkie to that of a 
human subject. As they 
note on their site, “we 
decided to do this test last, 
because we killed a lot of 
(Twinkies) during these 
experiments and didn’t 
want to know (if they 
were intelligent) before 
the other tests were over.” 

Gouge and Stadler 
slightly modified the 
Turing Test, normally used to exam- 
ine computers’ potential for artificial 
intelligence. Typically, the test com- 
pares computer-generated responses 
with those of a human to track how 
closely the two “minds” think. The 


pair had to abandon their 
first test after the human 
subject ate the Twinkie sub- 
ject. When the test was 
administered with a new 
human test subject, Dave, 
and a non-eaten Twinkie, 
the undaunted scientists 
discovered... well, I don’t 
want to give that answer 
away. 

Once the results were 
in, the pair posted them on the Web 
under the name the T.WI.N.K.I.E.S. 
(Tests With Inorganic Noxious Kakes 
In Extreme Situations) Project. The 
researchers were caught by surprise 
by the overwhelmingly positive 
response they received. The site gar- 
nered so much buzz that Stadler 
overhauled the text and graphics to 
make it more user-friendly during 


downtime at his internship with a 
major telecommunications company 
(Stadler declined to further identify 
the company lest his boss discover 
that he actually had downtime). 

The redesigned site should serve 
as a guideline for more “serious” sci- 
entists who publish their research on 
the ’net. In addition to separate 
pages that fully illustrate each exper- 
iment, Stadler succinctly summarized 
their findings in the form of a haiku. 
“ twinkies don’t burn well 
unless doused in alcohol 
then they make good fires” 
Stadler says he chose haiku over a 
more traditional approach to writing 
up lab results because “it’s a funny 
kind of poetry that lends itself to be 
used in silly ways.” 






80 


Internet Underground 



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The duo say they receive some 
really lame e-mail suggesting stuff 
such as “Wouldn’t it be cool if you 
did the same test with a HoHo’s or a 
Suzy-Q’s” for future tests. The two 
have discussed more advanced tests 
such as tensile strength or liquid 
nitrogen, but what will determine 
their scientific future is how hard 
their classes are this semester. 

The two say they both enjoy 
the fame and recognition the 
T.WI.N.K.I.E.S. Project has brought 
them both on the Rice campus and 
on the ’net. Gouge, a 20-year-old 
computer science and cognitive sci- 
ence major from Austin, Texas, was 
recently on a blind date when his 
escort discovered that he was the 
Chris Gouge. “It gave us something 
to talk about,” Gouge says. 

The page has even captured the 
imagination of a group of scientists 
in Sweden who love the page despite 
the fact that Twinkies are an 
unknown substance in Scandinavia. 
This may just prove the universal 
humor and appeal of the too often 
unheralded Twinkie. After all, who 



CHRIS GOUGE 


% 


vP 
















//r 


°r Si 


gjfl j <1-1 HQ] g>l«l a 1 « I *Wel 

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began to sore out of the side of the Twinkie, and dnp from the holes m the bottom After several samites offianxngTwmlue, 

U* fire w tat out, leaving a charred mars wfth brown kqud ooang out of ft It was really cool Throughout this process, the 
control <fcd not change 



Once the fire was out, the burned Twinkie did not change, except the ooang liquid quft ooang There was still no change m the 
control 


Conclusions: 

Twinkles actually burn quite nicely once they are dried out 


Lw 


""7" 5 


would visit a Web page in which 
University of Stockholm students 
tested lutefisk? 

As of press time, the pair had yet 
to receive an official response from 
Hostess, but they did send in proof- 
of-purchase seals to garner official 
Hostess Twinkie T-shirts. 

Ironically, the Twinkie is not the 
preferred junk food of either stu- 
dent. Gouge reaches for Hostess 
Cupcakes (“the chocolate gets me 




TODD STADLER 



Internet Underground 


every time”) when his blood sugar 
levels off, while Stadler prefers Ding 
Dongs (or King Dongs as they’re 
inexplicably known in certain states). 

Gouge says they average three to 
four e-mails per day about the project, 
almost all positive. “A lot of people 
have sent us mail saying this was the 
best use of the ’net,” he said. 

“Occasionally people tell us we 
have way too much spare time, but 
look at some of the other sites out 
there,” Gouge says, “I mean an Erik 
Estrada home page, the Electrical 
Engineering Purity Test? Now those 
sites are scary.” O 


FROM THE GRAVITATIONAL 
RESPONSE TEST OF THE T.W.l.N.K.l.E. 
PROJECT 

s0 ^ e Test Subject: Standard Twinkie 
Control Subject: Standard Twinkie 
Test Location: First and sixth floor, 

Lovett College, Rice University 
Start Time: Monday, May 1, 1995 14:21 
Stop Time: Monday, May 1, 1995 14:37 
Test Description: 

To test the gravitational response of a 
Twinkie, one Twinkie was taken 
to the sixth floor of Lovett and released 

over the edge. 
This process was 
repeated twice 
on the same 
Twinkie. 
Observations: 
Before Test: 
Before the test, 
both the control 
and the experi- 
mental Twinkies 
appeared within 
the range that 
would be 
described as 
a “normal” 

Twinkie. It should be noted that there 
was a high wind during the test. 
Immediate Results: As soon as the 
Twinkie was released, it began to fall. It 
fell until it hit the ground. Upon impact, 
there was a loud “splut” sound. A small 
crack opened on one side of the Twinkie. 
There was no noticeable change in the 
control. 

The Twinkie was dropped again. The 
same “splut” sound was heard on impact. 
The fissure in the side of the Twinkie 
widened. Again, there was no noticeable 
change in the control. 

For the “ Long Term Results, ” 

“ Conclusions , ” and “Possible 
Applications” of the Gravitational 
Response Test, you'll have to 
check the site out yourself at 
httpiUriceinfo. rice, edu!— gouge! 
twinkies.html 







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Now the Roswell ease and the alien autopsies are 
among the best documented controversies on the ’net. 
CompuServe has a special forum and archives on the 
paranormal. The entire 24-page summary of the Air 
Force investigation that explains away the wreckage as 
a crashed balloon from the top-secret is available. Both 
sides are presented in “The 50 Greatest Conspiracies of 
All Time” web site at http://www.webcom.com/~eon- 
spire/eurren 1 6.html. Probably the most entertaining site 
debunking the film is the step-by-step “How to lVlake 
An Alien” site by special effects whiz Trey Stokes 
(see sidebar). After perusing through more than 300 
pages from more than 20 sites and lurking on a half- 
dozen newsgroups on both sides 111 discovered that all 
but the most die-hard Roswell believers-and even a 
couple of those-believe the film’s a fake. 

lVIost seem to agree it was an elaborate scheme to 
make some quick money. Others suspect a more sinister 
motive. One popular theory: The U. S. government, in a 
continuing attempt to cover up a crash at Roswell, 
developed the film with plans of debunking it as a hoax 
to knock the credibility of ufologists who have tried 
earnestly for years to find out what really happened in 
the remote New Mexico desert in 1947. 

Consider this posting to alt.paranet.ufo in October: 
“The alien autopsy is a fake, sony to say. But, you have 
to give the U. S. government credit for the effort they 
put in. Very good, high-quality stuff, if not convincing. 
But don’t give up hope. It was all another attempt to 
break the psychological barrier they believe most people 
have about aliens.” 



^ muHH 

No one questions that something did crash in 
Roswell sometime in late June or early July 
1947. A rancher found bits of an alu- 
minum-type fab- 
ric, sticks, purplish tape with 
odd markings and a “black 
box”-type device. The gov- 
ernment did report it had 
recovered a flying saucer at 
first. The next day, however, 
officials changed their story, 
saying it was just a weather 
balloon. No one said much 
about it until the late ’70s, 
when rumors began to sur- 
face that the government 
had been covering up the 
recovery of an alien craft 
and four aliens at the site. 

But no one’s had any proof and the gov- 
ernment isn’t budging from its story. 

Enter Ray Santilli. The British film produc- 
er claims that while he was searching for 
some old footage of Elvis Presley, he con- 
tacted a retired military cameraman in Eos 


Angeles. The cameraman told Santilli that he had 
footage from three alien autopsies he had filmed, two in 
1947 and another in 1949. (One of the aliens suppos- 
edly lived for two years under the government’s watch- 
ful eye before it died.) Somehow, the government never 
got around to getting 22 reels of negatives document- 
ing most of the second procedure, which now sat in the 



Separated at Birth?: The alleged Roswell "alien" 
t left) bear* a striking resemblance to this 4- 1/2- 
> ear -old I human i girl afflicted with Hutchinson 
(iilford S*iH}r«m»c. 



THE ALIEN BEARS 
A STRIKING 
RESEMBLANCE TO 
AN AFFLICTED CHILD 


According to the 
cameraman (whom Santilli 
refuses to name), shortly 
after the crash, he was 
called to Fort Worth, Texas, 
to film the autopsy of one of 
the Roswell EBEs 
("Extra-Biological Entities"). 

In the most suspicious part 
of the story, the cameraman 
claims that the military 
neglected to collect several 
cans of the exposed film 
footage-which sat in the 
now- elderly lensman's attic 
for nearly five decades. Of course, as more than a few skeptics 



After doctors remote the block film, 
the ’’alien’' appears to hate eteballs 
like ant other human Joe l.unchhov 


PHOTOS FROM 
“THE 50 GREATEST 
CONSPIRACIES OF ALL 
TIME” WEB SITE 



old man’s attic. The cameraman, 
who is said to have died in early 
September, sold the 91 minutes of 
16mm film for an undisclosed price, 
absolutely swearing to Santilli it 
was authentic. 

Most of the 21 minutes released so far show two 
doctors in white bio-hazard outfits mulling about and 
cutting open a chubby, big-headed creature. They 
remove the creature’s organs, saw open the brain and 
take off the black eye lids, revealing human-like eye- 
balls. Few purport to have seen the much-discussed 
“tent” scene, documenting more of the crash debris and 
said to be swarming with military personnel. Incredibly, 
President Harry S. Truman is said to be viewed in this as 
yet unreleased segment. The debris in the footage avail- 
able conflicts with eyewitness reports of the materials 
recovered in Roswell in 1947. 

All this was shown in late August, when Fox aired 

“Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction,” a 
one-hour special on the footage. 
The network paid big bucks to get 
North American exclusive rights. 
On the program, a few minutes of 
the autopsy are shown, inter- 
spersed with interviews of people 
within the LIFO, paranormal and 
medical fields along with 
Hollywood special -effect artists. 
They also interviewed witnesses 
from Roswell, who described 
materials found. According to 
Stokes and some ’net newsgroups, 
one L.A. special -effects artist told 
Fox producers he thought the film 
was faked and explained how it could have been done, 
but his interview was cut from the special. 

The Fox program also ignored some inconsistencies, 
such as why no still photographer was present. That 
would be standard in such a military autopsy, some 
experts have noted in newsgroups. The most conclusive 
evidence the FOX special offered was that William 
Frakes of Star Trek: The A I ext Generation will do almost 
anything for a buck. 




Internet Underground 


you’ve got time, gumption and a little 
extra quick-drying oil clay, check out 
http://www.cinenet. net/trudang/ 
autopsy.html and read “Howto Make an Alien.” 

The site was developed by Trey Stokes, a 
special-effects expert who owns the Truly 
Dangerous Company in Los Angeles. Stokes, 
who has worked on movies such as the remake 
of The Blob and Robocop //, started the site 
after writing a letter to the The Skeptical 
Inquirer , when the group asked special-effects 


one ought to step up and say, ‘Hey, we’re 
not mystified at all by this.’ Certainly there 
are people who have more experience 
than me in this industry. I’m just the only 
one who has a Web page.” 

After their initial links, his site was 
picked up by people in various news- 
groups and as a link by pro-UFO news- 
groups. “The e-mail that has come 
has been largely stuff like, ‘great job, 
useful info.’ Some have said, ‘It’s 




artists to analyze the broadcast of the autopsy. 

“The first time through, it was like, ‘Wow, I 
don’t know,’ but then I watched it repeatedly. By 
the time I saw it about five times, I knew what I 
was looking at," Stokes says. 

He uploaded his letter, detailing his theory 
that the corpse was a not-too-impressive nor 


difficult Hollywood effect. The online version of 
The Skeptical Inquirer linked to his site. Other 
skeptics and UFO sites followed. He had to 
develop an FAQ. “Then it just started to grow 
because of the outside response to it. It’s not 
worldwide fame or anything, but it’s turned into 
this very strange thing.” 

Very strange, indeed. When you check out 
Stokes’ site, you’ll learn the general guidelines 
on preparing three full-body casts, how to pre- 
pare the inside of a dummy so it appears to 
have organic, squishy organs and to give it six 
fingers. He also includes a guide to “Alien 
Autopsy Bloops and Blunders,” which points out 
inconsistencies and mistakes. 

“I felt like I had to do this. I was seeing post- 
ings in newsgroups saying, ‘F/X people couldn’t 
do this or they couldn’t do that.’ I thought some- 


thought provoking, I’m still not 
sure.’ Then we get some that are 
angry, saying we’re wrong and that 
we’re just trying to get some noto- 
riety off this. But that’s not the 
case,” Stokes says. 

Perhaps one hopes that if the 
alien autopsy is proven to be a 
fake, that Stokes is right 
about the body being a 
dummy. Otherwise, that 
leaves only one other possi- 
bility: an altered human 
corpse. Many doctors have 
noted similarities in the crea- 
ture and real human deformi- 
ties such as Hutchinson- 
Gilford Syndrome or Patau’s 
Syndrome. 

“If such is the case, it would 
make this one of the most 
despicable and deplorable 
hoaxes ever perpetrated. It would 
mean that those who put this 
atrocity together butchered the 
body of a once-living human being, 
a woman in this case, solely out of 
greed,” notes Kent Jeffrey of the 
Roswell Initiative. 

Most skeptics, including Stokes 
and The Skeptical Inquirer ; think 
that’s unlikely. After all, consider the 
difficulty in getting access to a corpse 
and at least three people willing to 
cover up the mutilation. What would 
they do with the corpse afterward? 

“Why would you take that risk or go 
through that when it would be simpler to 
build a dummy and you could make it look 
however you wanted?” Stokes asks. 



— 




How To Make An Alien - Act IV 


|j 




Final Touches 

■■ 

We bring our body to the set. Just before filming, we reach through the opening m the corpse's back and paint the interior with 
blood and goo Then we put our internal organs into place. Maybe we made some beforehand, maybe we just bought some 

livers and kidneys at the market, or both. We seal the opening (it doesn't have to be a cosmetically perfect job - well never 

. 

see the alien’s back!) and roll the body over. A few drops of glycerin to make her eyes realistically moist, and she's ready! 


.- . : > - 


v 

Wmk 


■ mm ■ i ! 

- 




Wmm 

■ , , vi. 

ip | Blgf -"If If p 

I '&"//, ' m 

Hi lltiltt I IHi 



Wmm. 






ALL DRESSED UP AND NO PLACE TO GO: STOKES BELIEVES THE ALIEN'S A DUMMY 


“Yeah, this is supposed to be a momentous event, the 
happening of a millennium and they’re going to throw a 
guy a camera and say, ‘Film what you can.’ 1 don’t think 
so,” Stokes says. 

Neither does the Committee for the Scientific 
Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, which plans to 
officially brand the autopsy film as a hoax in the 
December issue of The Skeptical Inquirer at 


phy expert, is convinced the film is genuine. 

“Based on my investigation, 1 give a 95 percent scien- 
tific probability that the film was manufactured, exposed 
and processed in 1947. That’s my professional opinion,” 
Shell began the forum. People eagerly typed in questions 
for more than an hour. Asked why no one has seen the 
Truman footage, Shell replied: “It is on one of the rolls 
that are still stuck together and can’t yet be unrolled.” 


"The biggest single thing that says 4 HOAX ^ 

to me is how they just WHALE right on through 
the autopsy... THINK about that ice man they 

found in a glacier. They hadn't finished that autopsy 

after a whole YEAR. And that's a human, they 
KNEW what they were going to find." 

— TREY STOKES 


http://iquest.com/~fitz/csicop/si/ 

“It’s tough being a skeptic these days,” says Bany 
Karr, executive director of CS1C0P, which investigates all 
kinds of unusual phenomena. “With so many more chan- 
nels of communications opening, there’s more competi- 
tion to attract readers, viewers or listeners. And the para- 
normal sells. No doubt about it. Plus, for some people, 
it’s hard to give up their beliefs even in the face of solid 
proof,” Karr says. “But hey, I’m a Buffalo Bills fan. For 
years 1 thought they’d win a Super Bowl, but 1 had to give 
that up, too.” 

Karr points out inconsistencies such as the lack of mil- 
itary personnel on the scene, the neglect of proper patho- 
logical procedures, reassurances by special -effects experts 
that they could produce a similar model and plain com- 
mon sense as the basis of his group’s conclusion. 

“The alien in the autopsy isn’t even consistent with 
other reports about Boswell,” Karr says. “Other reports 
say the aliens had four fingers, this one has six.” 

Regardless of whether the film is genuine or not, 
Santilli and his supporters have used the ’net and Web to 
their best advantage. They seem to have leaked “snip- 
pets” of film to newsgroups months before the film was 
set to release. A Web site specifically designed to sell the 
footage was established in the United Kingdom. Other 
UFO groups say they were encouraged to link to it, and 
many did. Santilli hosted chats on CompuServe’s 
Encounters Forum all summer, creating a buzz about the 
August special and home video. A few minutes after the 
Fox program, viewers could turn off their TV and log into 
CompuServe for a moderated chat with Bob Shell, a con- 
sultant to the show, who as an independent photogra- 


^ 88 , 

■ViintU 




I 


Internet Underground 


UFl-O- 




On the ’net, both serious researchers, hobbyists and 
the just-plain-curious have equal access to the 
debate. More importantly, they get a chance 
to buy the endless flow of tapes, books and other 
stuff related to ufology. The bandwidth is becoming the 
place for one-stop paranormal shopping. At Stanton T. 



Friedman’s site, one of the few that seems 
to support the Roswell film as possibly 
authentic, you can buy his videos, Flying 
Saucers ARE Real , LIFOs ARE Real and The 
UFO Controversy. 

“Many of the persons making the biggest claims of 
‘alien bodies’ make their living from the Roswell Incident,” 
notes a military summary at http://www.inrs-ener. 
uquebee.ca/~paynter/paynter/a fmogul.html. 


UFO BUBBLEGUM 
TRADING CARD FROM 
HTTP://WWW RUTGERS . 
EDUAJFO.HTML 





“While having a commercial interest in something does 
not automatically make it suspect, it does raise interest- 
ing questions related to authenticity.” 

Santilli has sold the rights to the film in Britain, Brazil, 
Italy, Germany and Holland. Fox holds exclusive North 
American rights on the film. (Of course, if the footage is 


ell 41aiUj ?Rrrnrh 

J* RAAF Captures Flying Saucer 
^On Ranch in Roswell Region 

ft - « Ml 

HI r« h n» 

: r.: Uift MkW ... "* **w*w 

H • iSzxsr 

w 


- 5i 


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NEWSPAPERS REPORT ON 
THE UFO CRASH IN THE 
NEW MEXICO DESERT IN 
THE SUMMER OF 1947 


■■■■■. genuine, one would think 
the U.S. government would still hold the copyright, but 
that’s another story.) 

“The biggest single thing that says ‘hoax’ to me is how 
they just whale right on through the autopsy,” Stokes 
says. “People have made excuses for 
this, saying this was the second alien 
autopsied. But even if it’s the 10th one, 
scientists would still dissect it and that 
takes a little longer than an hour and a 
half. Think about that ice man they 
found in a glacier. They hadn’t finished 
that autopsy after a whole year. And 
that’s a human, they knew what they 
were going to find.” 

It’s possible that the LIFO communi- 
ty may come to the same conclusion 
soon. The entire Santilli film, including the “tent 
footage,” is slated to be shown at the Fifth 
Annual International UFO Congress and Film Festival 
and Extra -Biological Entities Awards near Las Vegas 
Nov. 25-Dec. 3. 

If the pro-UFO groups deem it a hoax, earnest Roswell 
investigators expect it to be a setback in getting to the 


— - SJoBUH'il Baity tSrrorft 

* . - Jt- fcfff &. IT ■*** * " 1"*! 

Gen.RameyEmpkiesRoswellSaucer 



truth at what happened at a dusty, isolated ranch in July 
1947. To help push sales of the video, the Roswell Centre 
site offers a copy of a top-secret document to President- 
elect Eisenhower from the “Majestic 12” project as proof 
that an alien craft did crash in Roswell. Karr says that 
even pro-UFO groups believe that the MJ-12 document 
is not genuine. 

Despite his mocking of the alien in the autopsy, 
Stokes believes that the Roswell incident still should be 
investigated. “These are people who believe there is real- 
ly something to be investigated,” he says. “They are try- 
ing to be serious about it, but when something like this 
comes out, it muddies the water for what they are trying 
to do.” 

Karr believes that even with the film debunked, the 
issue of Roswell will not go away; believers have 
remained steadfast in the face of two exhaustive gov- 
ernment reports stating nothing happened. 

That’s understandable when you consider that 
in the recent past, Americans have walked on the 
moon; 100 years ago that was thought impossi- 
ble. The government who put him there covered 
up extensive radiation testing on humans, 
nuclear experiments and the Watergate burglary. 
There will always be a segment of society attract- 
ed to the lure of an enigma hidden within a com- 
plex mixture of intrigue and the unexplained. 

“People love a conspiracy theory. It plays upon 
their natural distrust of the government. But 
what’s weird is how things have changed. Back in 
the 1970s, with The Night Stalker , there was no question 
that this kind of stuff was not real,” Karr says. “Now, 
with The X-Files, people really think that all this stuff is 
really true. That the government would cover it up seems 
plausible.” 

Hmmmm. Maybe the autopsy filmmakers should have 
gotten Agent Scully to do the job. O 



catch the future of gaining at 



http://www.sony.com go to video games then PSYGNOSIS 



u.of lh«* informal ion millennium. . 



BY 

flIIQ lElflV 5THI1 



The cover of Instant Internet struck my eye. "Connect to the 

Internet in five minutes or less with the 

II1STHI1T II1TERIIET ,n i tern f software ; n this h bo ° k " 

All right, I m always game for a chal- 
lenge. I installed the software in two 
separate time trials, using my zippy 
Pentium. The fastest was 14 minutes; the 
other was 21 minutes. Not less than five, 
but not bad for a full-featured program 
that allows you to use mail, FTP, 

D rf TITF 1 11 §°P^ ers ' Telnet and Web browser, then 
Li 11 Liu III L L a u ows y 0U c h oose y 0ur SL1P/PPP service 

from six independent service providers. 

C ] / QF We went InterRamp, which had a 
J u t. u d local dial-up number from Chicago and 
offered a free seven-day trial period. 

4 - -JL- . ....a The book itself offers clear instructions 
" " " without a lot of jargon and in a non-clut- 

tered format that provides a good 

overview of the various compo- 
nents of the Internet, although 
some of the ground covered in 
the book might be a little 
involved for people reeled in 
with an "instant Internet" 
pitch. The biggest drawback is 
that this book comes packaged 
with Chameleon. The program 
worked all right and the inter- 
face is user-friendly and com- 
plete. But compared to other 
software available that's either 
free or cheap (such as the 
Eudora mail program and 
Netscape) it's really hard for 
Chameleon to compete. 
Chameleon's Web browser 
needs desperately to be updat- 
ed; it doesn't support backgrounds and pages constructed for use with 
Netscape 1.1 or higher look terribly "off." It's the problem that plagues 
all book bundled with software - the market is changing so frequently 
I that the stuff becomes outdated by the time it hits the shelf. The best 
use of Instant Internet I can consider is for users of online services 
who want to move to an independent service provider but worry he or | 
she won't be able to handle complicated configurations. Just make 
sure that while you're up on Chameleon's software surfing the 'net, 
make sure you pull down some freeware. - Kathleen Flinn 



Personally, I love newsgroups, 
so I was glad, to find that's the subject 
at the heart of Planet Internet. With the 
advent of the Web, 


■CSSS JVWc C&WM -so. 


PLANET 




many people seem 

to surf, staring at pretty graphics and think that’s 
the most amazing thing about the 'net. Well, some 
of the truly great stuff on the 'net often comes in 
the form of clever, inspired writing displayed in 
newsgroups. Now, that's not often the case - I've 
seen some of the most juvenile, petty banter ever 
on newsgroups, too. Rimmer seems to have made 
an attempt to skirt around the bad groups, gophers] 
and FTP sites and ferret out the good. I don't 
knock his choices. The graphics and layout of this book are wonderful, 
amusing and fun, yet not overwhelming to the text. But what frustrated 
me was that he surveyed just 150 of 

the thousands of newsgroups. PI fill FT IflTFflUFT 

Then Rimmer wrote Planet 1 Lil 11 L 1 1 II 1 L II II L 1 

Internet in that irritating habit of 
many who write about the 'net, 
especially newsgroups. He writes a 
few paragraphs as explanation of 
the topic, then simply fills up the 
rest of the space with text he 
copied from the group’s files. So a 
lot of this book isn't even written 
by Rimmer. I understand what he 
attempted to do, namely provide 
readers with the voice of the 
groups and, in turn, offer them a 

reasonable expectation of what they might find if they wandered into 
the groups or FTP sites themselves. Sometimes that's important for 
groups with nebulous titles such as alt.devilbunnies. But alt.aol. sucks? 

Or alt.sex.stories? Aren't those titles explanation enough? Do they really 
need an entire page of excerpts? Quite honestly, I use the index of 
another Internet book with newsgroups descriptions more than I actual- 
ly use the book itself. 

In a way, this book is refreshing if only to see someone put a little 
emphasis on something other than the Web. But why, when I flipped 
through these pages, did I get the feeling that this book was somehow put 
together before the Web hit the big-time? I thought perhaps Rimmer did- 
n't know what it was until, then, voila, the proof. Nestled way in the 
back, a whole five paragraphs and few passing mentions of the Web in a 
discussion about on-line services. For those who have been on the 'net 
for any length of time, the information in this book won't be new. But for 
newcomers, it's not a bad introduction to the land beyond the Web. -KF 


BY STEIE 1I11E1 

1II1C1EST/1CG1II-IILL 

$21.15 

★ ★ ★ i 







[1TE1IET C111ECTII1 



S13.3S 

kirki 


We all know the type. They usually 
inhabit the dark recesses of a college com- 
puter lab, sitting in the office marked 
"consultant." They're knowledgeable, irri- 
table (especially when you ask a question) 
and lack even basic social skills. 

Most disgusting of all, though, is the 
supreme amount of time they have to 
search out all the hidden coves of the sili- 
con sea and sail home to brag to their 
friends about it. 

Those of us who have a life can't take 
the time to play modern-day Ulysses, so 
we must get back at the little geeks any 
way we can. Luckily, the marketing of the 
Internet has brought with it various guide- 



THOUSAH 


books for sightseers and information 
seekers. The drawback with this 
approach is the ever-changing nature 
of the 'net. Archives are shifting all 
over the place; sites are going up and 
down. It's a mad world, and the print 
medium just can't keep up. 

Microforum's Internet 
Connection is basically the Internet 
Yellow Pages on CD-ROM, with a nice 
menu system and a few multimedia 
touches to make you think that your 
Soundblaster wasn't a complete waste 
of money. Some short video clips 
introduce some of the screens. They 
maintain a generally jovial atmos- 
phere throughout the proceedings so 
that even when one's looking for 
information about Stalin's regime of 
terror, a duck with an oversized mal- 
let is guaranteed to bring a chuckle. 
They do slow the process, though, so 
the toggle switch is appreciated. 

The test of such a guide, though, 
is the information within. While some 
subjects seem covered adequately, a 
few seem skimped on. Beyond that, 
there's still the problem of the static 
nature of a guide like this. It would 
be optimal if the user could add new 
discoveries and delete old sites, but 
there is no provision for something 
like that. 

As it stands, this is a nice tool 
for users to have available on their 
Windows desktop, but it doesn't 
address the major problems that 
plagued its print brethren. There's 
still no substitute for gobs of free 'net 
time. -Ed Finkler 

The Best 

^ The Worst 


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kkkk 

When the IU staff reported to work in 
early September, we were greeted by speedy 
PCs already installed with Windows 95. Bill 
Gates is no dummy; put an icon on my desktop 
and I'll hit it just to see what it does. MSN has 
these extra long text lines for logins and pass- 
words so we could make a cool one (the_under- 
ground0msn.com). It's a little more difficult to 
navigate at first then some on-line services. We 
were confused how to access newsgroups, for 
example. Two big tables that greet you each 
time you log in take far too long to load, as does 
Microsoft's home page. However, those issues 
aside, MSN worked well. Its Web browser seems 
to adapt to even Netscape-enhanced sites and it 
has an easy-to-use folder system to organize 
bookmarks. If you don’t like their Web browser, 
MSN is compatible with Netscape. Plus, the net- 
work sponsors celebrity chats and has other 
cool services, such as an on-line reference shelf. 
Most of the time, we could multi-task easily, 
although once in a while we would overlap pro- 
grams and have to go through the shut down 
program to stop a task when a program froze. 
MSN works with the Windows 95 mail program, 
which we like. If you leave without hitting keys 
for any length of time, it will disconnect so you 
don't run up expensive online time (a feature 
other on-line services seem to purposely lack). 
MSN also passed our customer service test: we 
were able to get an MSN representative at 7.30 
p.m. on a Saturday night with less than two min- 
utes on hold to answer our fictional technical 
question. The biggest flaw is the cost. That's our 
beef with all on-line services, although their fre- 
quent user program isn't bad at $19.95 for 20 

hours per month. 
Additional hours are 
$2.50. We know we're 
underground and to 
some, Microsoft repre- 
sents all that is main- 
stream in corporate 
America, but we can't 
help but say it's a good 
bet for moderate users. 
-KF 




winter ‘95 






The latest in the trend toward ergonomically correct computing, the Touche 
replaces the standard, 

The Touche Touch Pid 


555.35 


curved computer mouse 
with a touch pad that 
allows you to glide your 
finger across a smooth sur- 
face in order to click and drag icons. The same kind of touch pads are de riguer for 
laptop computers. Studies have predicted that by 1998, roughly 70 percent of com- 
puters will use touchpads. Do yourself, and 
your wrists, a favor and check out the 
Touche pad at http://www.intl- 
tech.com/touche. 




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You can run, but you can’t hide 
with Motorola's lightweight wire- 
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puters. Now, no matter where you 
go, stay in touch and even venture 
on the 'net for up to three hours 
on a 9-Volt battery. The Personal 

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Messenger uses the 
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For more information 
call 1-800-8-WIRELESS. 




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AnchorPage is the only fully auto- 
matic hypertext indexing software 
for the Web. Hypertext indexing is 
the foundation for content-driven 
navigation that, when used by 
Web administrators, 
will allow surfers the chance to 
quickly skim the contents of any 
document before downloading it. 
To learn more about AnchorPage 
see http://www.iconovex.com 







Name: Loran Z. Gutt 

>sysop 

M or F: Male 

Home: Ham Lake, Minnesota 
e-mail address: 
gutt@solon.com 


Each month, this column profiles the people who help maintain or oversee 
newsgroups, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), mailing lists, Inter-relay 
chat channels and multiuser domains. This month, the Internet 
Underground asked a few questions of the 15-year-old high school sopho- 
more who maintains the FAQ and set up the Web page for the newsgroup 
alt.pave.the.earth. Their Web site can be found at 
http-.//www. solon. com/~gutt/pave. the. earth/pave, html 


What's your group about? 
alt.pave.the.earth is a group dedicated to self-fulfillment 
and the joy involved with paving the earth and driving really really 
fast, while eating cheeseburgers and drinking beer. We believe in the 
Plan™, which is a document that contains all the knowledge of the 
Pavers. We also hate environmentalists. Earth Destroyers 
(alt.destroy.the. earth) and time-wasting. We believe 
in the depletion of scarce natural resources and 

enjoy polluting the environment. 

How did you get involved with it? 
I got involved about a year ago with a very simple posting. After 
surviving some initial flames, I got involved and posted regularly. 
I eventually created PavePage, which is the official WWW site for the 
group and wrote Version 2.0 of the FAQ, making me one of the more 

knowledgeable APTErs (alt.pave.the.earth). 

How did it originally start? 

APTE was started a few years ago, but 
no one recalls when or why. 

Do you like it? 

Absolutely. I love being with such open-minded people, 
people who challenge the current status quo and reach 
out to challenge themselves, while not being afraid of jfFmni 
being laughed at as one would be in public. One of the 
great strengths of the Internet is its feeling of being 
able to say what you want and not be considered 

strange or odd for it. 

Do you have a day job? 
Yes and no. I'm a full-time student at Blaine Senior 
High School, where I'm a sophomore. 

What is typical discussion like? 
Typical discussion involves flaming new members, considering 
problems with the future of the earth, identifying 
people who are really paving parts of the earth, 
and listing people who we will condemn 
to the HydroPits after PaveDayl.™ 




What's the strangest thing 
(or couple of things) that you've seen online? 
Probably the time some person wanted to cover 
the earth with cobblestones. Or the guy 
who wanted to laminate it. 

What can people get kicked out of the group for? 

Does this ever happen? 
Yes, and frequently. Some of the major offenses were 
those who did the following: wanted to destroy the 
Earth, posted political crap, posted environmental 
crap, posted crap advertisements (spamming), 
posted crap responses to crap ads, thought 
APTE is a It. test, liked concrete 


better, liked fuel efficiency, thought pavers are insane and more. 
(Note: The official list of people that have been kicked 
off can be found via the WWW at: 
http://www.sohn. com/~gutt/pave. the. earth/thelist.html) 

Are flames common in your group? 
if so, what usually brings them on? 

Yes, but if so, they are in jest, usually correcting someone's errors 
in paving techniques or nailing newbies. 

Does the conversation typically stay on that topic or 
how has it wandered in the past? 

What was the most it ever got off the subject? 

It's never on topic *.) 

Describe your computer area: 

It's in the basement, in the computer room. I have pictures of 
me, my girlfriend, other humorous stuff that I have collected off 
the 'net and from magazines, my stereo, and yes, my desk is a 
mess. 

What's good about your gig with APTE? 

The friendly e-mail, getting to know people, bragging rights. 

What are some of your favorite postings? 

See http://www.solon.com/-gutt/pave.the.earth/clasoooi.htm 

What's on your screen saver? 

Lines and Colors by Microsoft. 

What are your favorite places to hang out on the 'net? 

http://www.iuma.com/ 
http://www.yahoo.com/ 
http://www.solon.com/-gutt/ (that's me) 


Where do you think the Internet is going 
and how will it affect us? 

The Internet will become a means of trans- 
porting ideas and mail rapidly across conti- 
nents, and will probably be the final 
demise of the U.S. Postal Service. 

What is the biggest sacrifice you’ve 
made for your group or list? 

Probably the 15 hours or so I spent on the 
WWW page. 



1 


What would people be surprised to find out about you? 

That I've been using the Internet since like second grade. 

Why is this newsgroup important? 

PAVING THE EARTH 
IS OUR DESTINY, o 


mu 



December ’95 


(Skewering The Faulty) 



ite- 


• ' >, V 

wSm 


Targeting individuals on the Web is a tricky proposi- 
tion. Most home pages are thrown up as hob- 
bies, without predetermined agendas; becom- 
ing a 'net celebrity is often accidental. But the 
Web is a metropolis with a small-town mental- 
ity, so when a lot of hits translate into real- 
world recognition, a sense of disproportion- 
ate power begins to inflate even the sturdi- 
est of skulls. When that recognition is based 
on a dubious endeavor from the beginning, 
power becomes problematic. 

A perfect example is Babes on the Web, 
Rob Toups' lovingly crafted list of hyper- 
links to attractive women on the World 
Wide Web. Toups rates women on their 
pictures and then hyperlinks their person- 
al home pages to his own, creating a 
smorgasbord of e-mailing opportunities 
for Horny Net Geeks (HNG) who would 
never approach half of these women in 
real life. But before we look at BOTW 
(and just to preempt any Orwellian 
taunts) we'd like to clarify our resound- 
ingly libertarian position on freedom of 
speech. If Toups wants to stand on the 
highest mount and loudly proclaim his 
lack of taste and tact, that's fine. We'll 
hand him the megaphone. Legally, he's 
well in the clear; we're opposed to any 
attempt to censor him or shut him down. 

Of course, as long as Toups feels free 
to say and link whatever he wants, we'll 
feel free to call his choice of speech 
inconsiderate, juvenile and 
misguided. 

Toups has changed the 
tone of his home page in 
the last few months, which 
we suppose is positive. 

However, the sub- 
stance remains the 
same. One of the prob- 
lems with objecting to 
material found on the 
Web is that the medi- 
um is so fluid and tran- 
sitory— with no hard 
copies made of contents, 
nasty portions can be 







m 


_ 



THE UQLY SIDE Of 


THE BABE-O-RAMA 




ITLe! 


1 25:59 CST^ 


£][]! UPDATED August 5, 1995 


elcome the Internet's most talked about World Wide Web 
page. What can I say? Since the last update, this page has 
caused me to move to New York City, fond me nude in WIRED 


by Justin ware and sarah ellerman 



Tn on the 

altered in a whim, resulting in a 
blank-slate updating of the col- 
lective memory. The arbitrary 
nature of his rating system, 
from one to four Toupsies (or, 
as he shouts it, TOUPSIEs), 
seems a little less harmless 
when you know that "Babe-O- 
Matic," designated as one 
Toupsie, used to be the signifi- 
cantly less subtle "Dog-O- 
Matic." Not that it's there any 
more— Toups, wisely enough, 
has covered his ass as he has 
a right to do. But Toups, 
don't try to pretend these 
ratings mean nothing. You 
could rate the women 
^neezebots to Chipperwinks 
and any moron this side of a 
GIF download would still know 
that four Toupsies means you 
approve and one you don't. Since 
you're rating "only from the neck up'' in 
a two-dimensional forum, our guess is 





_ Internet Underground 


Web 

that you're not ranking their minds. 

Of course, according to Toups, "plac- 
ing a home page on the World Wide 
Web is an invitation for entry. Having 
a personal photo on that page is an 
invitation for it to be rated.” This is 
typically known as the "she dressed 
so hot, she asked for it” defense. 
Walking past a construction site, 
even (and perhaps especially) if 
you're dressed well, is not an open 
invitation for catcalls. Yes, the Web 
is a public forum, but the word 
"invitation” implies a two-way 
street. Unless, of course, you're 
crashing the party, walking up to 
their proverbial doorstep with a 
few thousand hot-and-bothered 
friends. Even then it's nice to ring 
the doorbell. BOTW never informs 
any subject she's been hyper- 
linked until a flood of fan mail 
overloads their server. That same 
e-mail was characterized by one 
recipient as "horny and drooling" 
and arriving at a rate of two or 
three dozen per day. 

Toups goes to great lengths to 
reiterate his disapproval of 
harassment and virtual stalking, 
assuring the reader that he "will 
shake his right pointer finger 
while sternly saying, 'That's a No- 
No!' if such an individual irritates 
a linked author.” I don't know if 
Toups has noticed during his time 
on the Web, but most HNG 
wouldn't stop spanking the 'net if 
their arms fell off. Toups may not 
be actively encouraging harass- 
ment, but he's sure providing an 
easy forum for it. To paraphrase 
the police chief in Casablanca , 
Toups is "Shocked. Shocked!" to 
find out these women are harassed, 
then casually lights up a cigarette 
and rounds up the usual suspects. 

Toups has had plenty of opportu- 
nities to defend his site, but the 
other side of the story has remained 
remarkably hidden. Kim Rollins, the 
BOTW archenemy whom Toups seems 
weirdly fascinated by, has been 





defined as the anti-Toups in 
numerous articles on BOTW. 

Yet, Rollins says no reporter had 
actually spoken to her before IU. 

One of the misconceptions 
Rollins cleared up is Toups' 
self-proclaimed willing- 
ness to delete links 
when requested. It 
took Rollins three 
exchanges of e-mail to 
get the link deleted. 

Even then it wasn't 
exactly philanthropic: 

He told her he dropped 
the link to her site because Rollins 
removed her photograph from her 
own page. 

Unfortunately for Toups, we've 
read the e-mail, so this is pretty 
tough to deny. After all, according 
to BOTW, everything on the 
Internet, including e-mail, is fod- 
der for his cannon. 

We couldn't agree more. 
Anything on the Web is fair game, 
as is e-mail (assuming, of course, 
that you get it from the source). 
That still doesn't make BOTW a 



■L 





Cynthia Camfleri 




gets 20,000 hits a day, accord- 
ing to Toups. Is it any wonder 
some women aren't 
thrilled? 

Toups attempts to 
justify his page as 
satire, but he might 
want to check the defin- 
ition of the word 
before offering this 
argument. Satire uses 
irony, wit and ridicule 
to skewer vices and 
follies. Unless you 
consider a picture of Toupsie ridiculous 
(which you might) and the home pages of 
women vices, there's nothing satirical 
about this. Remarkably, the general 
media has written almost glowing reports 
about BOTW, from the Houston Chronicle 
to Brock Meeks at CyberWire Dispatch 
(who claimed, completely erroneously, 
that "the National Organization for 
Women has waged an electronic war 
against [Toups'l site.") 

"What amazes me," says Rollins, "is 


versy, good or bad, creates publicity," 
and since he wants publicity, he's 
insulated from criticism. Well, just 
because he enjoys mockery doesn't 
make it less worthwhile. Criminals, 
corrupt politicians and Rasputin all 
got lots of press. 

Toups was even confident 
enough to provide marketing 
advice for Rollins, who offered 
this copy of his e-mail: "This can 
be so much fun for both of us. 
Continue in your present mode 
and I will be the only one with a 
big grin. Remember, journalists 
do talk to each other about sto- 
ries and once an image is devel- 
oped about an individual, orga- 
nization or product, it spreads 
among the community and 
tends to be constant in differ- 
ent periodicals. Notice how 
stories on BOTW and myself 
generally have an upbeat spin 
applied to it and no hard 
punches are thrown." 

Well, bad karma catches up. 

Toups might have gotten a free 
ride in the press, even found 
himself nude in the pages of 


LET’S BE REALISTIC — THIS IS MORE 

like scribbling numbers up on a 

BATHROOM WALL THAN PROVIDING 

an objective compilation. 


worthwhile use of bandwidth. The 
Supreme Court has ruled that 
directories are public domain, but 
BOTW isn't exactly a phone book. 

What Toups is doing is compiling 
a list of women, in an order of 
attractiveness ascribed by him, then 
opening the door for a certain type 
of visitor. Let's be realistic— this is 
more like scribbling numbers up on a 
bathroom wall than providing an 
objective compilation. Besides, bath- 
rooms don't have phones above the 
toilet with a direct line to the numbers 
scrawled in magic marker on the stall. 
BOTW, with its list of hyperlinks, puts 
these women one click away from 
harassment. Then consider that this stall 


that everybody was falling all over them- 
selves to excuse his behavior. I think one 
of the first signs you're doing something 
stupid is when you have to over explain 
why what you're doing is all right." 

This might account for Toups' "30 Steps 
to Understanding Babes on the Web," his 
site's exhaustive, self-indulgent explana- 
tion of why criticism is unwarranted and 
why any anger indicates a problem with 
the critic. 

So far, this deflection has worked; 
press reports have been resoundingly 
positive. Of course, this could also be 
because Toups, in his own words, has 
"managed the coverage regarding my site 
and focused it to the point of view I 
wanted." Toups must be loving this 
Flamethrower by now; one of his major 
defense mechanisms argues that "contro- 


Wired, but other publications' 
oversights don't shift the fact 
that BOTW is rude at best and 
intrusive and offensive at worst. 

Even if our anger is "a product of 
our societal imprinting" as he 
claims, it's not our fault that soci- 
ety imprinted us with good taste 
and a modicum of tact. But Toups, 
fire back with what you've got— if 
it's true that any publicity is good 
publicity, a response on your page 
would only sell more copies for us.© 


ilili 



December ’95 



Web surfers want sites to load 
fast. Real fast. In this era of diminishing 
attention spans and thousands of sites 
beckoning for attention, few want to 
wait several minutes for home page 
images to load. 

To speed up your loading time, you 
can process these images through a 
series of filters to reduce the file sizes , 
while retaining detail. Here's a few tips 
to remember when processing images. 


CONVERSION 


Most graphic programs tell you 
how many colors you're using. You can 
reduce that number through a process 
called indexing. Indexing reduces the 
color palette to describe only the colors 
used in a given image, then discards the 
unnecessary colors. That makes the file 
smaller. Standard GIF format is 8-Bit 
(256 colors), but most GIFs will convert 
down to 7-Bit (128 colors) and many to 
6-Bit (64 colors), yet still look accept- 
able. All of this reduction means small- 
er files. With files, smaller equals faster. 

Another option when you reduce 
color usage is "dithering." Dithering, a 
bit-map function, breaks up the images 
into a pattern of uniform dots that are 
larger than normal. At the same time, it 
reduces color use from the whole spec- 
trum to a much more limited one. 
Photorealistic pictures have areas of 
color blending and some dithering 


looks fine. However, 
remember that solid-col- 
ored pictures, such as 
company logos, look best 
without dithering because 
the dot patterns make the 
images look uneven. 


TRANSPARENT COLORS 


LAST SPEED TIP 


Here's an easy one for HTML programmers. Obtain the height 
and width of the finished area the image will require. Note 
those dimensions in the inline image tag. That way, a com- 
patible navigator (such as Netscape) will not have to spend 
time computing those numbers. Users on slower computers 
will thank you. Remember to change the tag if you later 
shift the dimensions of the image. Otherwise, the browser 
will distort the page by forcing it into the previously 

programmed size. 



Within the GIF format, 
you can designate one color 
"transparent." The transparent 
color will not show because it 
will fade into the site's back- 
ground. This is one way to 
make clear borders on an irreg- 
ularly shaped graphic or one 
that doesn't have firm edges, 
such as a cloud. Now the prob- 
lem you'll run into here is that 
the border between the trans- 
parent color and the other 
viewable colors may have an 
irregular "sawtooth" edge, 
which can be distracting. If you 
use Photoshop, you can fix this 
by selecting the magic wand and increasing the feather charac- 
teristic. Be sure to choose a true color for the transparent 
shade, lest the image take on a splotchy look. 


I WANT MY 16-BIT DETAILED PHOTO 


All right, if you've got to have one, try this: Convert the 
picture into a 265-color gray scale. The image keeps all of the 
detail in 16-Bit format, but without color so the file size will be 
much smaller. You can then colorize the gray-scale image into a 
red one to reduce it to 16-Bit, even smaller yet. Then make the 
background transparent. You'll have the image down to 6-Bit, 
yet not lose any of the detail. 


GIFs vs. JPEGs 


With the GIF-89 format, an image can 
organize its data by a process called "interlacing." 
When these image files are viewed in compatible 
navigators, the image comes into focus as the file 
continues to load. So when the file is finished 
loading, the image is sharp. Think of it as mini- 
blinds opening; at first, you see only horizontal 
lines. By the end, it fills in until you have a solid 
view. However, interlaced GIF-89 files are bigger 
than non-interlaced files so this process is not a 
good choice for small stuff such as navigational 
buttons. But for larger pictures, using interlacing 
is a good idea; it keeps viewers at your site since 
something is going on, even if it’s just a 

picture loading. 

The JPEG format has bet- 
ter compression than GIF. 
However, JPEGs do not 
interlace or allow trans- 
parencies and require more 
processing power to decode. 
Also, only a few navigators 
support JPEGs (named after 
the group that devised the 
standard: the Joint Photographic Experts 
Group). That's why most sites rely on 
GIFs rather than JPEGs. But for full-page, 
8- to 24-Bit images, JPEGs are still the 
best choice thanks to their superior color 
compression. However, if you use JPEGs, 
see if color palette reduction works for 
you to get maximum compression. 

Remember: Smaller, faster, stronger! O 


Artist and Web designer Stafford 
Huyler, creator of the online cartoon 
Netboy, covers the Internet for 
WFLD-TV in Chicago. His work can 

BE SEEN AT HTTP://NETBOY.COM. HAVE A 
TROUBLESOME WEB PRODUCTION QUES- 
TION? Send it to the Brainpan 

AT IU ©MCS.NET 


J 


Internet Underground 











(Behind Closed Doors) 



by Justin Hall 



FORGET KIDS AND 



FORBIDDEN 


CYBERPORN, LET' S CONFRONT 


Technology could either foster 



a healing synthesis of culture and 
community or accelerate capital- 
ism's soulless commercial crass- 
fest. To remedy silly synthetic 
sex with artificial sweeteners, I 
propose a healthy dose of human- 
ity— Web pages celebrating the 
magically mundane moments of 
offline life. I want more folks to 
share their personal sense of the 
sensual online. 

When I was younger I got off on 
porn mags. Playboy or Oui, the 
raw straight-up sex was enough 
for masturbation. Older, I have 
known real women with depth and 
warts and sagging breasts; porn 
often repels me. Belying artificial- 
ity-sex without strings, without 
personality. 

Real-time sex has a context, 
nestled within relationship and 
history that add appropriate 
weight. The interplay of emotion, 
attraction and the quirks of each 
partner and situation, that is the 
raunchy fun of rolling in the hay. 

By its nature, pornography is 
concentrated, extreme sex. Porn 
mags and porn pages feel weird 
because they present us sex out of 
context. Alt.sex.stories is a greater 
turn-on than alt.sex.pix. buxom, 
buxom. buzzom because it's folks 
writing largely for their own 
sake. They have a story to tell 
(true or not) that doesn't have to 
sell or win anyone over. More 
straight from the hip, more hon- 
est, more sexy! 

I like stories better because 
there's build-up. They convey a 
better sense of character, 
place, setting and mood, more 
than another prostrated silicon 
sweetheart shucking her 
hot pants. 


OUR PRUDISH CULTURE 


and lead happier lives for 

Sex-filtering software like 
SurfWatch forces erotic content 
into a ghetto. By segregating 
sex, folks learn it is to be 
found on pornographic pages, 
nowhere else. I am prevented 
from providing a positive page 
in example of sexuality, as I 
speak of sex in a relationship or 
as I explain how I contracted a 
sexually transmitted disease. 

Concentrated sex is warped; 
it scares us, takes control of us, 
exploits us and alienates us. 
Concentrated sex is what we get 
when we prevent sexual inte- 
gration. 

When we ghettoize sex, 
we make a commodity of it. 
Purveyors of the straight-up 
nasty capitalize on the forbid- 
den and taint our sense of the 
sensual. 

Harlequin Romance novels 
are considered acceptable 
because the sexy stuff falls 
between the emotional wran- 


gling. It is not considered brain warping 
to read about sex in the context of a 
relationship. 

Online porn archives are another 
story. They are simply sanitized, soft- 
ware versions of our neon-lit urban 
outposts of sin with damp paper bags 
out in front and a guy with too-thick 
glasses behind the counter, with para- 
noid men furtively indulging their 
fetishes amid the racks. Like that porn 
store, pages of porn pictures exemplify 
the screwed-up sexuality of our culture. 
If people were permitted open channels 
of sexual communication, we wouldn't 
have thousands of horny geeks dialing 
daily into Playboy for their bizarre, 
alienating sense of the erotic. 

If we continue to suppress and seg- 
regate even the most benign forms of 
erotica, we risk perpetuating this sexu- 
al alienation. No doubt there will be 
plenty of businesses to pick up the 
slack. For example, this post to my 
interactive list of sex links: 

Netstar linked us to NetMate live 
video conferenced cybersex 
And of it they sez. 

This is 21st-century sex. Cybersex. 

Live video and voice communications 

with a sexy cyberbabe. Cybersex is 
safe sex. 

Safe sex, alienating sex. I may have 
to use a condom when I sleep with 
someone, but I don't want all my lovin' 
to have that latex sensibility. 

The Internet could open some minds, 
and free some souls. People who think 
they're weird can find out they're not, 
it; unless we decide they're deviant and 
dangerous and drive their voices under- 
ground. In that case, we will continue to 
alienate our sexuality, especially when 
computers are checking to see if we are 
violating taboo. 

Offline, there is not enough frank and 
healthy sexual dialogue. This potential 
exists online. The Internet offers an 
opportunity to shrug off our prudish 
ways, explore the deviant, share our 
fantasies and fears from the sanctity of 
our desks. Giving up our neuroses over 
bodily functions and basic instincts 
would do a world of good for our 
culture. O 


Contributing editor Justin Hall, 20, 

ENCOURAGES PERSONAL PUBLISHING AND STORY 
SHARING FROM HIS LINKS FROM THE 

Underground (http://www.links.net/), 

WHERE HE HAS BEEN EXPOSING HIMSELF ONLINE 

since January 1994. « 


czaiiiD 


Hill! 

97 

Ttmtft 


Li € g~ C fl 

December ’95 







(The Last Word) 



eople at the grocery store don't 
recognize me. No one points at me when I 
walk down the street. When I introduce 
myself at a party, ears don't perk up. I guess that's 


life as a Web celebrity. 

Recently, I was lounging in my expensive, new 
bathrobe, watching workers install another bunk on my 
bed when I realized: There is room for more people like 
me. Even the least popular show on network television 
has more viewers than the most popular page on the 
Web. The Web community is small. It's easy to become 
notorious or famous on the Web. Anyone can be a 
celebrity in the virtual world. 


10 STEPS TO BECOMING A WEB 
CELEBRITY 

1 . Develop a personality 

OUTSIDE THE WEB. 

For example, this guy doesn't qualify. 

(http://www.usl.edu/Departments/CACS/ 

Staff/landry.html>) 

2. Be creative, original 

AND OWN A COMPUTER. 

Although, it only really matters if you own a computer. 




3. Think up a name for yourself. 

I chose Mirsky. You might want to choose something 
else. Some suggestions: Bronsky, Ballsky, Flopsky or 
Tursky. 


4. Realize you don’t 

NEED TO BE A REAL PERSON. 

Photo of Martha Breckenridge, 

57, the woman behind "Mirsky" 


5. Create your own page. 

It doesn't need to be special or 
interesting. For example, you 
might want to create a page 
about lozenges. Show different 
kinds of lozenges. Time how long 
they last and describe which ones taste best. Maybe 
explain "menthol." Do it soon, though— do you have any 
idea how many people will read this column? 



6. Get as many links to 

YOUR SITE AS YOU CAN. 

It's expensive, but you might want to give away a car. A 
few months ago, I entered an online contest and won a 
nice, insulated cup. If you can't give away any mer- 
chandise, offer sex. Promote it by saying your page has 
"more nudity than humanly possible." That should get 
people to look at it. 




Internet Underground 


How to 
become a 
Web Celebrity 

by mirsky 

7. Garner as many 
Web awards as possible. 

Here are some of them: Funky Site of the Day 
http://www.realitycom.com/cybstars/index.html; Fred's Web 
Hotspots, http://www.winmag.com/flanga/hotspots.htm; Mexico Cool 
Site of the Day http://dch.mty.itesm.mx/cool/ 

When you've been named Barbara's Best Bookmark of the Day 
http://www.shsu.edu/users/std/stdkc0/pub2/best.html, you know that 
CNN can't be far behind. Display all awards, no matter how obscure. 

8. Get a real celebrity to endorse your page. 

This is hard. So far, Erik Estrada will not return my calls. 

9. Think like a celebrity. 

This is the most important aspect of becoming a 
Web celebrity. Although advertisers claim that 
millions of people use the Web, only a few thou- 
sand ever read a particular Web page on a given 
day. You are more likely to become famous by 
writing an editorial in your local paper. To 
become a celebrity on the Web, it's thus impera- 
tive that you forget that your audience is small. 

You must act and think like you are world- 
renown. To take on that indifferent air that makes celebrities so 
attractive, do the following: 

1. Don't answer e-mail. 

2. Make people read a lot of reviews of your 
site before they can actually see it. 

3. Make graphics of your name huge and appear everywhere 

1 0. Enjoy the benefits of being a Web celebrity. 

It's hard for me to determine the benefits of being a Web celebrity. 

Once, I got e-mail from Courtney Love. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. 

I also got to write this column even though I really don't what 
the hell I'm talking about. O 

Mirsky's "Worst of the Web" can be found at 
http://mirsky.turnpike.net/wow/Worst.html You can read about his 

BATHROBES AND BUNK BEDS ON PAGE 46 IN "ARBITERS OF COOL." 

'Please, no digital autographs...’ 





A first rate strategy title 

Computer Game Review 

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PC Gamer 


i jS'SSK 8S8?®SB ?j ifWSSq 


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'■vNsftw# . s*y/ * Y+s./ jy »■ 

mm i : utwm 


Ideroef. 


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Town Screen 


torld Computing at 1-800-251-9635 (818-591-4136 outside the Check out our hot new Web Site at 

,S.), or by mail: P.0. Box 4302 Hollywood, CA 90078-4302. http://www.nwcomputing.com 

© 1995 New World Computing. Inc. Heroes of Mightfnd Magic is a trademark of New World Computing, Inc. New World Computing and its distinctive logo and Mighl and Magic are registered trademarks of New World 
Computing, Inc. New World Computing, Inc. is a wholly Owned subsidiary of NTN Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. IBM screens shown. Actual screens may vary. All other trademarks belong to their respective holders. 





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